Amanda Knox: Journalists call on Italy's President to restore freedom of press

[pnwmom]

The Knox prosecutor has been using his prosecutorial powers and the criminal defamation law in Italy to file charges -- with possible jail time -- against journalists who cover the Amanda Knox case. Under these circumstances, there is no freedom of the press with regard to the Knox case. Any Italian journalist who continues to cover the true facts of this case is risking criminal indictment and up to three years in prison.

The following letter has been made public:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2011/04/19/prosecutor-threatens-italian-journalists-over-amanda-knox-case/

Dear President Napolitano,

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending the rights of journalists worldwide, is deeply concerned about local authorities’ harassment of journalists and media outlets who criticize the official investigation into the November 2007 brutal murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher in the central Italian city of Perugia. CPJ is particularly troubled by the manifest intolerance to criticism displayed by Perugia Public Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who has filed or threatened to file criminal lawsuits against individual reporters, writers, and press outlets, both in Italy and the United States, in connection with the Kercher murder investigation as well as the investigation into the Monster of Florence serial killings.

SNIP

Your Excellency, we are urging you to ensure that reporters and writers are not afraid to cover, comment on, and criticize the activities of Perugia authorities. This is particularly pressing now that the appeal of two defendants in the Kercher murder case goes on at a local court.

We ask you to ensure that the politically motivated lawsuit against Perugia blogger Frank Sfarzo is immediately scrapped and that outside investigators are assigned to conduct an investigation into the September 28-29, 2010, abusive actions of Squadra Mobile officers against him.

We also call on you, in your capacity as president of Italy’s Superior Judicial Council (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura), to ensure that Perugia prosecutors, including Mignini, are not allowed to use criminal defamation as the proverbial bogeyman against their critics. It is unacceptable that journalists, bloggers, and writers on both sides of the Atlantic should censor themselves by staying away from subjects of public interest such as the Meredith Kercher murder case and the Monster of Florence killings because of Prosecutor Mignini’s inability to tolerate the scrutiny that comes with public office. It is also unthinkable that U.S. journalists–who have reported in Italy before and love the country–should not dare go back for fear of being arrested.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We await your response.

[villager]

1. Will they call on America's President to do the same?

:shrug:

[pnwmom]

2. We don't have a defamation law that prosecutors can use to file

criminal charges against journalists who criticize the conduct of the prosecutors.

[villager]

3. we just have lax media ownership laws that keep journalists from being heard

So the chilling effect winds up being the same.

[pnwmom]

4. No comparison. These journalists are being threatened with prison

simply for doing their jobs.

[villager]

5. Comparison. Our journalists are threatened with *no* jobs, if they go "off script"

n/t

[pnwmom]

7. Are bloggers here being threatened with jail for criticizing prosecutors?

That would be news.

[villager]

8. so we're agreeing, at least, that mainstream media in America is a fairly lost cause

...as far as reporting actual "news" -- or presenting non-corporate viewpoints on critical issues?

Sure, there are bloggers, and most of 'em aren't even being sued!

Though I wonder, a few years down the road, if the internet becomes "tiered," that most bloggers just won't be "heard." Like those "off-message" journalists.

So that ultimately, the effect is the same.

[pnwmom]

9. No, I'm not agreeing with you that the American media is as limited

as the press in Italy. I don't know how to "prove a negative" and neither do you.

[villager]

10. The American media is rather fantastically limited, due to contraction of ownership

The fact you cite bloggers has being better sources of information would tend to confirm you think so, too.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. So, the story, widely reported in the mainstream media, that GE did not pay any taxes is

not classified as a "non-corporate viewpoint?"

[villager]

12. I guess the question is: do you truly imagine our media still afflicts the powerful and comforts...

..the powerless?

On any kind of a regular, routine basis?

What sorts of stories tend to dominate news headlines and news cycles? Like an NRA member, you can always find a story about a successful "home invasion" defense, and thus extrapolate this incident has absolute and wide-spreading meaning in terms of national policy.

You've done the same with the GE story.

Let's see if it has "legs," or if there are follow-ups, or if "reporters" start asking uncomfortable questions about it when they have "access." Etc.

[xchrom]

6. Recommend