What the attack on reporter Saverio Tommasi in Florence suggests to us: a protocol

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The Fanpage journalist critical of no-vax was recognized and attacked. He was protected by the police. Ossigeno proposes a code for the participation of reporters in events where it is foreseeable that their personal safety is at risk

OSSIGENO  30th  July 2021 – On Saturday 24th  July 2021 in Florence, the journalist Saverio Tommasi, a Fanpage collaborator, was insulted and jostled  by numerous participants in the protest demonstration against the introduction of the “green pass” for those vaccinated against Covid.

In the previous weeks Saverio Tommasi had published critical comments against the so-called No Vax movement and their attitudes  according to which vaccines and many public measures for the containment of the pandemic were an attack on liberty. In Florence he took part in the procession with his camera turned on to interview the demonstrators. Some of them recognized him, began to insult him and point him out to others who also took to insulting him and manhandling him who claimed the right to do what he was doing. The situation was deteriorating when some police officers on duty intervened and protected the reporter from the attackers. The scene was videoed by Saverio Tommasi himself who posted the video on his Facebook page.

Ossigeno expresses solidarity with Saverio Tommasi and re-proposes the proposals made in December 2020 to make journalists’ participation in these and other events less risky (read here)

The Order of Journalists of Tuscany, AST and FNSI expressed solidarity with the journalist (read here), who also received public messages of support from the mayor Dario Nardella and the writer Roberto Saviano. On July 27th  2021 Saverio Tommasi published a long response to those who attacked him (read here), in which he writes: “Dictatorships begin by beating journalists, not with the green pass, my chief editor Francesco Cancellato reminded me”.

The national secretary of the Italian Left, Nicola Fratoianni, directed a formal question to the ministers of the Interior and of Justice asking them to punish those responsible for the attack (read here). Insults to journalists were also reported in the demonstrations in Rome and Milan (read here). GB /wt

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