Italy’s far-right government has been accused of leaning on the state broadcaster to axe an anti-mafia television programme by the journalist Roberto Saviano after he criticised the country’s leaders.
Four episodes of Saviano’s programme, Insider, Face to Face With Crime, had already been recorded and were scheduled for broadcast in November by Rai, the Italian state broadcaster.
However, on Tuesday, the broadcaster’s new government-appointed chief executive, Roberto Sergio, announced that the programme had been cancelled.
The decision came five days after Saviano, the author of Gomorrah, described Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the rightwing League, Matteo Salvini, as “the minister of the underworld”. It was not the first time he had used this expression – which was coined by an anti-fascist politician, Gaetano Salvemini – to describe Salvini. He is currently on trial after the politician sued him for defamation.
Sergio denied the move was politically motivated, telling Il Messaggero: “The choice to cancel Saviano’s programme is a corporate and not a political choice.”
But the journalist, who lives under police escort and has been in hiding from the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, since 2006, said the move was a sign of the erosion of freedom of speech in Italy.
“Freedom of expression is deeply compromised in Italy,” he told the Guardian. “If a person criticises a minister, a TV programme is cancelled, even if it is an anti-mafia TV programme. They axed a programme in which I would have talked about Don Peppe Diana, a priest killed by the Camorra. I would have talked about some mafia members turned police informers who revealed the relationship between the mafia and politics.”
He added: “Europe must fear what is happening in Italy, because what is happening in Italy could soon happen also in the rest of Europe if freedom of expression is not monitored.”
The day after his comments, the Forza Italia party, a member of Italy’s far-right coalition, presented an inquiry to the Rai supervisory commission asking that Saviano’s programme be cancelled. The move was supported by Brothers of Italy, the party of the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as well as the League.
Saviano is also facing another trial for calling Meloni a “bastard” for her migration policy. Meloni sued Saviano for criminal defamation and, in 2021, a judge in Rome ruled that the writer should be tried. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.
Last May, sources at Rai accused Meloni’s government of wanting to bend the organisation to its will and “cancel Italy’s antifascism footprints” after a series of high-profile departures.
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Last spring, Carlo Fuortes resigned as chief executive, citing pressure from the government, while Fabio Fazio, a left-leaning talkshow host, and his co-presenter, Luciana Littizzetto, a comedian known for her monologues targeting conservatives, left after failing to get their contracts for the popular Che Tempo Che Fa programme renewed.
Salvini was accused by the opposition of being “authoritarian” after celebrating the departure of Fazio and Littizzetto with a sarcastic “Belli ciao” tweet in reference to the Italian antifascist song.
“With every change of government, there’s a change in governance at Rai,” a source at Rai told the Guardian in May. “The only difference now is that it is more ruthless, whereas before it was perhaps a little bit more, shall we say, gentlemanly.”
