Italy. Threatened journalists: Four unanswered questions

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OSSIGENO June 9, 2022 – Ossigeno cannot find clear and convincing explanations on some events and therefore publicly invites others to provide useful elements and information.

1. MONITORING – In no other European country is there a continuous, active and in-depth monitoring of intimidation, threats and incidences of SLAPPs comparable to the extensive and documented one that Ossigeno per l’Informazione has been doing in Italy for over 10 years, without taking advantage of neither national nor European funding . Nevertheless why has it succeeded in documenting in detail many more episodes of intimidation and threats every year than those reported by the Council of Europe Platform, by the Monitoring Centre financed by the European Commission and by the Documentation Centre set up at the Italian Ministry of the Interior?

1. RANKINGS ON PRESS FREEDOM IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES – Why does Reporters Sans Frontières – which in Europe does NOT actively monitor intimidation and threats to journalists – claim to establish with its annual rankings that in Spain, Germany and other countries there is more freedom of the press than in Italy? How does it evaluate and compare the degree of press freedom of each country in the world, without having real data, basing it instead on opinion polls collected among alleged experts. It is based, therefore, on the personal perception of the phenomenon, that is, with an approximate method that only authoritarian countries like China, Russia and Turkey justify where it is dangerous or even impossible to freely collect and communicate information on violations of freedom of information and expression?

3. JOURNALISTS KILLED IN EUROPE – Why has the assassinations of the Greek journalist Giorgos Kaivaraz, killed in Athens on April 9^th 2021, and of the journalist Peter De Vries, killed in the Netherlands in July 2021 aroused much less alarm and political and media attention in Europe compared to those raised in 2017 by the deaths of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jan Kuciak in 2018? How does one explain the lack of public attention for these other murders despite the fact that the EU, after the first two murders, has funded and put in place an early warning mechanism for threats to journalists?

4. GIULIO REGENI – Why in the annual report on human rights and democracy in the world in 2021 (Annual Report on Human Rights) published by the European Commission by the European External Action Service and, in particular, by the EU High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, is there no mention of the Egyptian authorities’ obstruction towards the Italian judicial authorities committed to shedding light on the kidnapping, torture and murder of Giulio Regeni? (see here)

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