Italy today celebrates its liberation from fascism, an anniversary overshadowed by a censorship row at the public broadcaster centered on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
RAI, which has several TV and radio stations and is funded in part by a license fee, canceled a monologue on fascism by a renowned writer due to be broadcast for Liberation Day today.
Critics have for months said that RAI has appointed figures ideologically close to Meloni’s government, dubbing it “Telemeloni.”
Photo: Bloomberg
The decision to pull Antonio Scurati’s monologue, in which he accused Meloni’s party of rewriting history, sparked widespread outrage.
“This RAI is no longer a public service, but is being transformed into the megaphone of the government,” Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein said, echoing a phrase used by RAI’s journalists’ union.
Meloni herself, who leads the Brothers of Italy party, denied censorship on her part — and responded to the row by posting Scurati’s monologue on Facebook.
She suggested that Italians decide for themselves, while making clear what she thought of him.
“Those who have always been ostracized and censored by the public service will never ask for anyone’s censorship,” she wrote.
“Not even those who think that their propaganda against the government should be paid for with citizens’ money,” she added, referring to reports that Scurati wanted to be paid too much.
April 25 is an emotional time for many Italians, marking the insurrection in 1945 that reclaimed several northern cities from Nazi invaders and their fascist collaborators, and the liberation of the rest of the country by the Allies.
In his monologue, Scurati accused Meloni’s party of “trying to rewrite history” by blaming the worst excesses of the National Fascist Party rule on its collaboration with Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
Meloni told parliament when she took office that she never felt any sympathy for regimes, including the National Fascist Party led by Benito Mussolini between 1922 and 1943.
On Sunday, Scurati read his monologue to a live audience in Naples and accused Meloni of painting a “target” on his back by using her platform to “personally attack” him.
The Strega-prize winning writer ended his speech by echoing a call from some in the audience: “Long live anti-fascist Italy.”
As a public broadcaster whose top management has long been chosen by politicians, RAI’s independence has always been an issue of debate, but the arrival in office of Meloni has redoubled those concerns.
Just months after she took office, RAI’s then-chief executive officer Carlo Fuortes — appointed by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi — resigned, complaining of a “political conflict” over his role.
In his place the government appointed Roberto Sergio, who said he intended to air “a new narrative.”
In December last year, senior RAI editor Paolo Corsini was heavily criticized after appearing at a Brothers of Italy meeting, where he aligned himself with Meloni’s party.
Earlier this month, the European Federation of Journalists expressed concern at a change in rules on political balance allowing more air time for ministers discussing government business on RAI ahead of the European Parliament elections.
One RAI journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “the climate is unhealthy.”
Over the weekend, the union of RAI journalists, Usigrai, accused managers of trying to “silence” Scurati and of a wider “suffocating control system that is damaging RAI, its employees and all citizens.”
However, RAI director-general Giampaolo Rossi on Monday condemned the idea of censorship as “completely baseless.”
He said an investigation had been launched into how Scurati’s monologue was canceled — while condemning “surreal reconstructions” surrounding “yet another attempt at aggression toward RAI.”
The broadcaster’s schedule aimed at guaranteeing the “greatest possible heterogeneity of stories,” he added.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS