19 March 2008

The disinformation bosses

Friends of the blog, I want to tell you about a case that relates to me personally, from which it is possible to draw the moral of the fairy story as regards disinformation, that is the cause of the decay of democracy in our country.

In 2006, two days before the elections, Berlusconi’s Il Giornale sent to its front page headlines of the type: “Di Pietro denounced, investigated”, for an incredible series of crimes. It seemed that we had gone back to the times of Mani Pulite, when, for every investigation that I carried out, I was subjected to ten other investigations, as though the fault was mine and not that of those that had committed the crimes.

And in this case too, given that Italia dei Valori is having success, lo and behold this news item arrives. It was a question of one of those characters in search of an author that is making a denunciation every day, one day in relation to one person, and the next day in relation to another person. The denunciation in this case was completely pie in the sky, however, given that there was voting two days later, some citizens might have thought: “why on earth am I voting for Italia dei Valori?” Do you see how it is possible to be undermined by information? Not by the denunciation as such. Every citizen has the right to make a denunciation and every magistrate has the right to investigate, in fact he has the duty to investigate. And every person under investigation, especially if they are a politician, has the duty to rush to the magistrate to present his reasoning, instead of getting angry with the magistrates. And that’s what I did.

Without even listening to me, the archiving of the case was called for. The denunciation was so muddled up that the judge didn’t even want to hear what I had to say. There was opposition to the call for the archiving of the case and the hearing of the opposition request was fixed for February of this year. Now, given that the Government has fallen and we have to go to elections, three days before the archiving of the case, for three days in a row, that newspaper, accompanied by that type of information thundered out always on the front page “Di Pietro under investigation”. In reality I was not under investigation, they had already called for the archiving of the case. Well then, why did they do this? Let’s reflect.

How does information work now? It’s enough to place a news item, even not true, on the front page. It’s not necessary for people to buy Il Giornale, what’s important is that every evening, before they go to bed, and every morning before they go to work, almost all the citizens listen to the summary of the press headlines. Thus all citizens have that hammering of their mind with the news headlines that are on the front pages, while they are putting on their pyjamas and while they are taking them off.

Here I’ll open a separate topic. I’ll tell you about a specific case to make clear how sensitive this situation is. A few days ago, I saw a tuppenny newspaper, where you could read: “Pamela Prati: la mia vera storia con Di Pietro” {Pamela Prati: my real story with Di Pietro} And yet I have never had anything to do with Pamela Prati. I went off to read the rag and in a line written really tiny, it said: “I have never had anything to do with Di Pietro”. But in the meantime, all those who read the front page, got an idea that is completely the opposite of the real state of affairs. Now, if it’s a question of Pamela Prati that’s OK, if it’s a question of honour, or of really serious accusations, or if it’s a matter that is criminally relevant, this is a serious danger for anyone in politics.

Thus, I’m not criticizing Il Giornale because it passes on information, in fact I accept criticism, but I cannot accept the falsity of a news item.

I did not ask for the postponement of the hearing and I went all the same. When I went there, I found that the one accusing me was asking for the postponement of the hearing until after the elections. How’s that? For the first time you find a politician rushing to the judge asking to be judged early and you want to judge me later? I opposed the request and the judge judged me then. So there we are, today the judge says: archiving the Di Pietro case because “il fatto non sussiste” {the fact does not exist}. “Il fatto non sussiste”, in judicial terms means that, if I had been accused of murder, the person considered to be dead, in fact is alive. As well as that, the judge added that the documents are to be sent to the public prosecutor to examine the possibility of the crime of calumny of the one who has been denounced.

Do you think that tomorrow morning, that newspaper will put the news item on the front page with the addition of “excuse us Di Pietro”? No. I’ll tell you what will happen: in the next few days and for every election campaign, for as long as there’ll be Di Pietro and Italia dei Valori, during the election campaign there will always be someone who, instead of measuring up political topics, will be measuring up defamation. And tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, they’ll be inventing something else, and then something else as well. Not because the fact is true or false, but because in this way they are trying to put the brakes on the political work of a party like Italia dei Valori, that has made transparency and the rule of law its whole essence.

So, I’m turning to you, you who surf the Internet, you who have sent different messages and emails asking for explanations and worrying about the developments on this matter. I have scanned in this statement and you can find it at this link. Read it.
It is a exactly what tells you how it is possible for someone to stop the political work of a party that is fighting for the rule of law, trying to defame, instead of engaging with the political topics.
Reflect on this, because that newspaper is the property of the gentleman who want to be the President of the Council and he’ll do it in this way and that’s what he’ll do, and if it happens that he really becomes President of the Council: he will eliminate his own opponents in this way.
It’s not by chance that he has asked Ciarrapico to be a candidate with him, because he needs a few extra journalists so as to be able to do a bit more disinformation. Then, if you will allow this, let the facts speak. The facts speak clearly. Of that person, there’s very little in which you can trust. He uses punches below the belt to reach the results that he could not get otherwise, because he has no credibility.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information