Rai Censorship, the opposition’s letter to the presidents of the Chambers: “They silence us”

The opposition has sent a joint letter to the presidents of the Chamber and Senate to “denounce the progressive and disturbing silencing of every request from the opposition in the Rai supervisory commission”. The letter, signed by Stephen Graziano (PD), Dario Carotenuto (M5S), Maria Elena Boschi (IV), Angel Bonelli (AVS), Joseph De Christopher (AVS), Mariastella Gelmini (Action), underlines how the majority is “mortifying the supervisory commission, limiting the political action of the opposition groups which, despite the guarantees of dialogue assured by the Presidency, are in this way, in fact, deprived of their control function”.

This is a further piece in the relative mosaic which, again today, has registered the alarm of the European Union on the reforms and the media in Italy and the strong denunciation of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarellaon the “acts against free information”, in the aftermath of the attack on the journalist of Press Andrea Joly at the neo-fascist Casapound rally in Turin.

The opposition’s letter adds the Rai front. Here is the full text: “Dear Presidents, we bring to your attention an objective criticality regarding the political and institutional ability of the opposition commissioners within the Supervisory Commission for radio and television services that requires your timely intervention. We consider what happened this morning to be extremely serious, with the denial, during the Commission session, of the request to summon the Cdr and the deputy director of Rainews who had resigned after the case of the failure to cover the French elections, the Dg and the Head of Rai Personnel for the affair linked to the fiction filmed on the island of Stromboli and for the case of some new hires that have been the subject of attention by the national press. We want to report that we are witnessing a progressive and disturbing silencing of the requests by the opposition groups. The request to vote on every proposal that comes from the minority parties, denying any consensus in the Presidency Office and rejecting the proposals by a majority in the plenary sessions, is mortifying the institution. of our commission, limiting the political action of the opposition groups which, despite the guarantees of dialogue assured by the Presidency, are in this way, in fact, deprived of their control function. For these reasons we have deemed it indispensable to address your attention, aware that we are at a maximum critical point which makes your intervention necessary and essential for the restoration of an orderly debate within the Commission to protect the prerogatives of the opposition groups in the exercise of their function”.