Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-10-08-Speech-4-025"
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"en.20091008.5.4-025"2
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"Mr President, the television images of this empty Chamber will be the best judge of the contrivance and the sham that is this debate. In fact, in 2004, a debate was held in this House on freedom of information in Italy. We passed a resolution in which the proponents declared themselves to be alarmed by the situation in my country. There was a centre-right government, and there was a Prime Minister: Silvio Berlusconi. Following the victory of the left in 2006, the problem miraculously disappeared. There were no more of the dramatic debates within the European Parliament, no more of the international warnings and no more of the collecting of signatures so dear to champagne socialists.
Suddenly, however, after yet another electoral win by Mr Berlusconi, the danger to the free movement of ideas has magically returned. In short, when the centre-right governs, the press is at risk, and when the centre-left governs, there are no problems. It is a pity, however, that the percentage of civil and criminal actions brought against journalists in my country by exponents of the left, such as Massimo D’Alema and Romano Prodi, is at an all-time high. Such sponsors account for up to 68% of these actions.
Ultimately I wonder whether it is possible for freedom of the press to have been jeopardised by a single request for justice by Mr Berlusconi. This may perhaps be explained better than I have explained it by an interview with Mr Cohn-Bendit, which I quote word for word: ‘It is absurd to compare Mr Berlusconi to a dictator: there are no prisons for dissidents, he has the support of the majority, and the centre-left has simply lost’. Simply lost.
It is a very serious indignity for our beloved Italy to be subjected to a surreal and farcical debate by a handful of professional disinformers. Moreover, this indignity will cost dear, because once again they will lose the support of the Italians, who will vote in even higher numbers than today for Mr Berlusconi, not least because they believe he is committed to fighting for the well-being of Italy. You, on the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, seem intent – determined – to destroy our country’s image. Yet the damage you are doing to Europe is perhaps greater than the damage done to Italy: because what you are offering the public is a caricature of Europe, where you delude yourselves that you are handing out popular mandates with the aim not of upholding people’s rights, but of turning reality on its head in a Stalinist style that is today paradoxically characteristic of the exponents of a group that calls itself liberal.
Indeed deny if you can – ladies and gentlemen from Antonio Di Pietro’s party – that you are communists. Your history follows you and it is the history of those who have never given up using lies as a way of branding their political opponent as dangerous. However, the real threat to democracy is created by those who seek to take our future away from us by refusing to accept the verdict of free elections and conjuring up ghosts.
We will not relinquish that future; thus, we will fight during this parliamentary term to prevent the European project, in which we passionately believe, from being distorted by the confusion between freedom of expression and misrepresentation, and between justice and the manipulation of powers. Know this, would-be liberals: you will not weaken our determination to contribute to the common good…"@en1
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