(RSF/IFEX) – On 25 November 2002, RSF protested the two and a half year prison sentence for libel imposed on journalist Raffaele Jannuzzi by a Naples court. On 20 November, the judicial authorities refused to grant the 74-year-old journalist “partial freedom” or convert his prison sentence to house arrest. “Sentencing journalists to prison terms for […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 25 November 2002, RSF protested the two and a half year prison sentence for libel imposed on journalist Raffaele Jannuzzi by a Naples court. On 20 November, the judicial authorities refused to grant the 74-year-old journalist “partial freedom” or convert his prison sentence to house arrest.
“Sentencing journalists to prison terms for press law violations is contrary to United Nations standards and is unworthy of a democracy,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard noted in a letter to Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, while calling for an urgent reform of Italian press laws. “Prison sentences must be abolished, in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” Ménard insisted.
Jannuzzi has been a senator for the Forza Italia party since May 2001 but his parliamentary immunity does not protect him in this case. He was convicted in his capacity as editor of the daily newspaper “Il Giornale di Napoli” for articles published between 1987 and 1993, and especially because of articles in which his newspaper criticised judicial officials responsible for combating the mafia. Jannuzzi himself wrote many investigative pieces on the mafia and defended television presenter Enzo Tortora, convicted in 1983 of colluding with the mafia on the basis of the statements by mafia members who cooperated with the authorities.
Jannuzzi is currently in Paris attending a Council of Europe meeting. He could be imprisoned upon his return to Italy. He told RSF that he intends to remain in Paris until the end of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary work on 16 December. He said he would only return to Italy once the Italian authorities recognise the immunity he enjoys as a member of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly and the Western European Union.
Another Italian journalist, Stefano Surace, was arrested and jailed in Italy on 24 December 2001 for press law violations dating back more than 30 years. In the 1960s, when he edited the nonconformist newspaper “Le Ore” and was well known for his reports on prison conditions, Surace was convicted in absentia and sentenced to more than two years’ imprisonment for “libel” and “obscene publications”. After being allowed to serve his sentence in the form of house arrest, Surace left the country and returned to live in France, where he has resided for the past 25 years (see IFEX alert of 13 August 2002).
