(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is concerned about the death threats received by seven foreign correspondents from American and Israeli media in recent days. The letters sent to the targeted journalists made reference to the Red Brigades, an ultra-leftist group. “These threats must be taken seriously, even if it is proven that there is no involvement of […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is concerned about the death threats received by seven foreign correspondents from American and Israeli media in recent days. The letters sent to the targeted journalists made reference to the Red Brigades, an ultra-leftist group.
“These threats must be taken seriously, even if it is proven that there is no involvement of the Red Brigades,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard stated in a letter to Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu. “We ask that you take all necessary measures to guarantee the safety of these journalists,” he added.
In the past two weeks, at least seven correspondents from the American and Israeli press, based in Rome and Milan, have received letters or telephone calls in which they were threatened with death unless they left the country before 30 October 2002. The handwritten letters made reference to the Red Brigades, (an ultra-leftist group that has been responsible for many assassinations of public figures since the 1970s), and declared a “global war against Anglo-American-Zionist terrorism.” Police do not believe that the Red Brigades are the true authors of these threats, nor that the letters are credible. The targeted journalists prefer to remain anonymous.
