Election gifts

After years of mounting unease among journalists working for the Rai state TVs and Radios, the trade Union representing their interests -USIGRAI- is taking the necessary burocratic steps to call for a general national strike. It would be the first time that Rai journalists strike for reasons other than a rise in wages, and this time they have the full support of the National Union of Journalists (FNSI) that is fighting the government’s heavy cuts on cultural funding, which are set to force a great number of newspapers to shut altogether.

The move comes after the parliamentary commission (CdV) set to control Rai's respect of broadcasting laws gave a weird interpretation of the italian law -Par Condicio- that regulates the presence of political figures on TVs. It does so by stating that political representatives of each party should appear on TV proportionally to the share of votes the party gathered at the previous election. The Par Condicio law was passed by the 1996-2000 leftwing government which, unable to agree on a law on Berlusconi's conflict of interests, established general criteria to be imposed on every Italian TV and radio stations.

Last week the CdV, which is not supposed to interpret laws but only to make sure they are applied, decided that Rai should comply with Par Condicio in a very special way: in view of April’s regional elections they should suspend whatever investigative program which touches topics related to politics, as such topics could potentially be favouring some political parties over the others. This would imply the full closure of around 11 programmes on the RaiTV channels. Beside the obvious damage to people’s right of information, it is very important to note that this provision only applies to the Rai channels, i.e. not to Berlusconi’s ones. This means that Rai (44 % of audience share) will lose advertising money together with credibility, while its main competitor (Berlusconi’s Mediaset, 41% of audience share) will once again profit from Rai’s economic Hara-kiri.

These are the economic consequences, but what about the political ones? Well, it is easy to guess that if people don’t find information on Rai, they will turn to Mediaset (unless they have satellite TV, but that’s a different story). And who would require a company not to fully support its owner, especially when he needs all the help he can find to win elections in a time in which his popularity is slowly –but steadly- declining?

The opposition had voted the Par Condicio law thinking that it would restrain Berlusconi's Tvs from becoming a straightforward tool of propaganda. Instead this is what was achieved: serious limits to freedom of information were set, Berlusconi anyway won the following elections, and now the law is turning against the very politicians that had voted for it.

Last week in Geneva, at the UN 7h periodical universal review, a report on Italy’s compliance with human rights standards was submitted. In this report, obviously focused on immigration policies, some remarks were made about the Italian Media Anomaly. These remarks were also stressed by many of the delegations present at the meeting. The three major propositions were: to regulate the conflict of interests, to liberalize the TV licences, and to set a limit to the Government’s control of the Rai state TV. The Italian delegation, headed by vice minister V. Scotti, unsurprisingly omitted to address these concerns. But what was really amazing was that he took the time to explain that Rai is not influenced by the govt, and that in fact there is a special parliamentary commission (the CdV) set to make sure that things stay this way. There wouldn’t be much to add to such a self contradicting argument, except that it was pronounced just 1 day after the same CdV had set the measures explained above.

A downhill path

We’re barely into the new decade and already reading about freedom issues in Italy is like scanning a long war bulletin. The situation was poor 20 years ago, but it has worsened since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s entrance in politics. In the last six months it has taken the steepest downhill path one could imagine. In the ’80s and ’90s Berlusconi’s television channels represented editorial innovation and business success. But in the last 10 years Italian’s appetite for the Berlusconi style of programming has waned.

No doubt prompted by the economic success of Murdoch’s Sky Italia satellite platform, Berlusconi has begun using his government to pass laws that damage Sky TV to the sole advantage of the bottom line of his TV media empire. He is passing laws to protect his privacy, while at the same time classifying as top secret information about illegal wiretaps on intellectual and political leaders of the opposition. Nevertheless, during his recent visit to Israel, Berlusconi accused the Italian press of orchestrating the harshest ever media campaign against a primre minister.

Let’s stop for a second and see the measures the government adopted, or is tying to adopt, this month. The first, and most important, is a measure restricting internet freedom. Part of the Romani decree, it would require anybody frequently posting live video on the internet to get a government licence. This has drawn criticism from Google, owners of YouTube and the Corrado Calabro Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), which said “Only authoritarian regimes have restricted internet freedom”. This measure is strengthened by the Bondi decree, which issues a new tax on any product that could potentially help citizens to break the copyright law: anything from computers to DVD players and internet connection devices.

The Romani decree contains other measures that highlight Berlusconi’s struggle to maintain his control of the media, and to secure his revenues. One element — that government officials have already labelled as non-negotiable — will cut the percentage of ads allowed on satellite and cable platforms (like Murdoch’s Sky TV) from 18 per cent of airtime to 12 per cent, but thanks to a legal trick, augmenting it for Berlusconi’s broadcast channels who can increase their percentage of ads from 18 per cent of airtime to 20 per cent. Another measure cuts the funds for cultural productions like theatres — already been cut by 50 per cent in the previous Berlusconi government. The economic crisis means many cinemas and theatres are already on the edge of bankruptcy. Cultural productions are important as they showcase different viewpoints, unlike Italian television which only portrays a happy and smiling country.

Articolo 21, the leading association in defence of freedom of speech, is a national meeting in Rome to discuss possible actions to prevent the passing of this bill.

In a law which took effect last week, movies and shows forbidden to under 14s will be banned on any TV platform up to 10.30 pm, even if it’s pay per view. This is a clear blow to Murdoch’s Sky, as they have just launched a series of pay-per-view 24/7 porn channels. Looking through this legislation I realised something funny: while movies like Grease are to banned, live shows with almost naked girls will still be legally broadcasted. In fact this law was always in place, it has just been extended to the new satellite platform, but as an Italian I had never noticed its impact, as I am pretty used to seeing semi-erotic dances on most of Italian channels, at any time of the day. Indeed, Berlusconi made his fortune on “immoral” TV. As an anonymous commenter wrote on the site of Republica, if this law was to be respected, we would need to shut down all of Berlusconi’s television stations from 7am to 10.30 pm.

As if all this was not enough on the 5 January Berlusconi classified as top secret information about the wrongdoings of one of his allies. Marco Mancini was the number two at the SISMI military intelligence agency. He is currently under indictment for taking part in an illegal wiretapping organisation targeting intellectual and political leaders of the opposition. Berlusconi’s actions stalled the trial against those responsible and enabled Telecom, the telephone company involved in the wiretaps, to settle the charges against them for less than E5m on 28 January. This would not be surprising were it not for the fact that a strict law aimed at limiting the use of wiretaps to investigations into terrorism and organised crime is being promoted in an aggressive and long-lasting media campaign. This idea draws support not only from Berlusconi’s allies — prompted by the prime minister’s wiretap related sex scandal— but also from important parts of the opposition, worried of being scrutinised by the public opinion.

The attitude of Italy’s politicians to anything that might endanger their privileges has reduced the capability of the media to draw the public’s attention to problems that should concern every Italian. This leads to the dangerous situation we’ve living in for the past 10 years: the only body of democratic control remains the judiciary, but without the public support they have been left to a lonely fight against the all-mighty political class. This is why Berlusconi is working hard to reduce its powers, to the advantage of his colleagues, but also of organised crime.

Our political class won’t denounce wrong-doing. Not long ago the mayor of Milan, a Berlusconi ally called Letizia Moratti, proposed dedicating a street to the famously corrupt Bettino Craxi. Craxi was the charismatic leader of the Socialist party (PSI) up to the early ‘90s, he was also one of Berlusconi’s political mentors. Craxi’s involvement in a series of corruption scandals forced him to flee the country, in his absence he was convicted and sentenced imprisonment.
Berlusconi’s allie rallied behind Mayor Moratti, as did some opposition politicians. Piero Fassino even argued Craxi “was just a scapegoat, since the problem of the illegal funding of political parties was common to all parties, not only to the Socialist one”. We might wonder why would anyone ever want to rehabilitate such a man? Politicians should not hide behind the excuse that corruption is endemic to politics.

There might be one good thing to all this: is Italy going to be the ultimate opponent to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire?

Published by: Index on Censorship

Berlusconi's new enemies?

One of the first moves of Berlusconi’s allies after the Milan attack on the Italian PM was to hurl vitriol at a calm, precise, investigative journalist without any political allegiance. His name is Marco Travaglio. They accused this highly professional journalist, whose characteristic style is a cool, unelaborated presentation of the facts, of ‘instigating a climate of hatred’. They called him a ‘media terrorist’.

This was but the latest failed attempt to discredit and censor Travaglio, who has become not just one of Berlusconi’s most damaging critics but also a counter celebrity of his own modest kind. It was typical of the censorship that Berlusconi has tried persistently but unsuccessfully to impose on journalistic critics since the publication in 2001 of Travaglio’s L’odore dei Soldi (‘The Smell of Money’), soon after Berluconi’s election as prime minister. In this bestselling book Travaglio documented Berlusconi’s connections with the mafia. After Travaglio had presented his evidence of the mafia origins of Berlusconi’s initial business capital in a 20-minute interview with comedian Lutazzi, the newly-elected PM promptly ordered the sacking of Luttazzi and a couple of other popular TV journalists.

Travaglio has persisted, publishing well-documented books (two per year since 2004) about our PM’s legal problems, the threat he represents for freedom of expression and his governments’ misdoings. The reward for his work has been a stream of legal charges for defamation, all of which he has won.

Books, regular appearances on the website of Beppe Grillo – comedian-cum-voice of a disparate movement, symbolically and literally giving two fingers to the political class – did not satisfy the determination of Travaglio and his colleagues to transform Italy’s politics and press. Last September, he and others founded a new daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. It now sells more than 100,000 copies every day, mainly as a result of internet promotion.

The paper is based on the principle that the media should be democracy’s watchdog. It gives a voice to those who want laws to be respected, first of all by the politicians that make them. It investigates and exposes the misdoings of MPs from across the political spectrum. It is closely associated with the growing opposition party Italia dei Valori, a party founded by the former judge Antonio di Pietro, who played a leading role in the trials of 1992 that exposed corruption throughout the political class and brought down the parties that had ruled Italy since the second world war, along with the Socialist Party of Bettino Craxi, the political protector of Berlusconi. It was after this that di Pietro, under relentless attack from Berlusconi and his allies, decided to abandon the judiciary and found the party.

Like Il Fatto, Italia dei Valori focuses with single minded determination on issues of democratic representation, corruption and the rule of law. While Berlusconi and his regime is the main target, the party and newspaper are often at odds also with the opposition, for instance regarding the direct government control over state television.

Although Marco Travaglio is one of Berlusconi’s strongest opponents, he is not a journalist of the left. He would resist political labeling but it is interesting that he comes from the Catholic right of Italian politics. This runs counter to the normal pattern of Italian politics. The public generally sees criticisms of prominent politicians as ideologically motivated. So if someone says that Berlusconi is unfit to rule Italy, it is because it’s a left-leaning – or possibly a communist – journalist, not because there are very good reasons why the PM is unfit for his job.

Travaglio was born in Turin in 1964 and began his journalistic career freelancing for local Catholic publications. In the late 1980s he worked for his mentor Indro Montanelli (1909 -2001), at one point a close ally of Berlusconi. (In 2005 Travaglio published a book with the title Montanelli and Berlusconi, a Great and a Small Man.) Montanelli had been one the most prominent anti-communist intellectuals for many decades. At the time that Travaglio began working with him, he was the director of Berlusconi’s daily Il Giornale. Travaglio got a job as a Turin correspondent for the paper.

When, in 1993, Berlusconi entered politics – some say to protect his own business interests –Montanelli strongly protested. This was, first, for the obvious reason that his friend had too much media power in his hands, but also because, as he used to say, ‘as much as Berlusconi is a great editor, he would be a disastrous PM – he’s a man who believes in his own lies’. Montanelli abandoned Il Giornale, the newspaper he founded 20 years before, and started a new, short-lived daily called La Voce. Travaglio also joined this venture, until it closed a year later.

Last year was one of Berlusconi’s most difficult in government. This year will be decisive for his political and economic survival. Not only has he failed to silence critics – though he has sought to gain maximum advantage from the attack on him in December – but he now faces a competitive threat to his TV monopoly. Ironically, the challenge comes from Sky TV. (Italian leftists give a hollow laugh at the fact that in their country, Murdoch is an ally.)

Berlusconi also faces trials for corruption that he is doing his best to sabotage. The case with potentially the most serious consequences is the one associated with the British lawyer David Mills, who has already been found guilty of being bribed by Berlusconi. Here he is stalling, so as to make use of the law passed by his own government requiring that financial charges are dealt with within seven years. Berlusconi has declared that he will also try to change the constitution to ensure that he remains beyond the reach of the law.

There is no doubt that Berlusconi retains great popularity among some sections of Italian society. But he also faces widespread opposition – which is strengthened by the facts so scrupulously and lucidly put together on the keyboard of Marco Travaglio and now disseminated through the daily newspaper Il Fatto.

Published by Redpepper

Berlusconi targets the blogosphere - published by the Index on Censorship

Silvio Berlusconi’s government is exploiting the violent attack against him in order to restrict internet freedom. Giulio D’Eramo reports

Early last month, at a political rally in Milan, Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was hit with a plaster statue by a man with a long record of mental problems. His injuries were minor, he suffered a broken nose and lost a lot of blood.

Following the violent attack, Berlusconi’s opponents took to social networking sites and “Kill Silvio” briefly became a popular Facebook group. Italian ministers blamed bloggers for creating a “climate of hatred” and made calls for tighter regulation. The government is now pushing for a bill that would restrict internet freedom by making it compulsory, even for blogs, to get a government permission before posting political comment on the web. Such a measure was first envisaged in August when the press revealed that prominent members of the Lega Nord party — part of Berlusconi’s ruling coalition — had created a Facebook group inciting Italians to kill illegal immigrants.

Berlusconi is under attack from all sides: aside from the sex scandals that have undermined his popularity, he is working on new legislation after Lodo Alfano, the law Berlusconi created to give him legal immunity was struck down by Italy’s highest court on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Another blow has came from the civil courts: one of Berlusconi’s media holdings Fininvest has been ordered to pay €750m in damages to the owners of La Repubblica for bribing a judge set to decide which of the rival media groups had the right to buy Italy’s largest publishing company, Mondadori, now part of Berlusconi’s empire. Berlusconi’s legal woes are endless. In October the Italian court of appeal upheld the conviction of British lawyer David Mills who was found guilty of accepting a bribe in return for giving false evidence. Earlier in 2009 Mills had been sentenced to four and a half years after allegedly accepting payment of $600,000 in order to to testify in Berlusconi’s favour during two trials during the 1990s. Last but not least Berlusconi had been damaged by allegations made by a mafia turncoat that the prime minister had ties to the mob.

Internet campaigns and petitions against the prime minister have been highly successful. The last one — against a government bill intended to protect Berlusconi from some of the trials he is involved in, but which also has the highly undesirable effect of being a useful legal tool for Mafia bosses — was launched by Roberto Saviano, the internationally acclaimed author of Gomorrah, and has now reached the 500,000 signatures milestone. In a massive show of support for freedom of information, on 3 October hundreds of thousands of people joined demonstrations all over Italy. It was estimated that a quarter of a million people attended the march in Rome.

An outsider assuming that all this adds up to Berlusconi’s political end would be shocked to see just how well he is still doing in both political and economic terms. The prime minister is still in complete control of his political coalition. Over 80 per cent of Italians rely on television as their means of information, and all the major TV channels directly controlled by either Berlusconi’s family holdings and/or by the government. Noemi Letizia, the teenage girl whose friendship with Berlusconi prompted his wife to file for divorce is now an emerging TV star. Berlusconi’s media empire is stronger than ever despite relentless competition from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV platform. This is partly thanks to the many measures taken by the government and by RAI State TV (which, unfortunately enough, is by law directly controlled by the government) to counteract the rise of the Australian tycoon.

Berlusconi’s Mediaset has sealed a €1.05 bn television deal with Spain’s Prisa (the publisher of El Pais newspaper) in a move that makes the group a true European-scale player. Mediaset, already Italy’s biggest TV broadcaster in terms of advertising sales, said its Telecinco unit will buy Prisa’s free-to-air channel Cuatro, which will give the group Spain’s largest audience share with about 23%.

From his bed in the hospital, Berlusconi’s first reaction to the violent attack on him was sincere shock: “Why do people hate me? I love everybody, I am the president of every Italian.”

As an early political opponent to Berlusconi (and former editor of one of his newspapers) used to say the problem with Berlusconi is that he believes his own fantasies. He’s always said that everybody should love him, and now we see that he really meant that. The newly-released documentary Videocracy shows that after 10 years of Berlusconi as a PM, thanks to the impressive media power at his disposal, Italians are now living in his imagined world. It’s a world without respect for woman, legality or financial accountability; which values only individual success, money. It sees the image as more important than the word.

When one man has such a complete control over his country, those who have different political views are given little space to express them through the media. As long as that leader feels loved by his citizens he will fight opposition by democratic means, but we should not forget that it is when a man is scared and feels reviled he is capable of resorting to the use of an undemocratic arsenal. What seems to be good news for Berlusconi’s opponents could easily turn bad.

Italy: the People against Berlusconi - published by the Index on Censorship

Italians are marching against the prime minister’s stranglehold on the media. Giulio D’Eramo reports

Italians will stage a huge demonstration for free speech in Rome on 3 October, in protest at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s new efforts to stifle media criticism. Protesters will also demonstrate in other cities such as London, where the Italian community and friends will gather in front of BBC World Service headquarters.

The idea of organising a demonstration to support freedom of expression came after Berlusconi’s lawyers launched defamation suits against two leading newspapers, La Repubblica and L’Unità, at the end of August. The move marked an unprecedented change in Berlusconi’s usual (and usually successful) strategy. Previously he portrayed himself as a victim of communist and judicial conspiracies, instead of taking legal action against those accusing him of wrongdoing.

According to Berlusconi’s lawyers, La Repubblica is guilty of posing offensive questions to the prime minister. Notably, these include the “10 questions” that the newspaper has published daily since May concerning Berlusconi’s “friendship” with young women and the state of his health. L’Unità, the main opposition party’s daily, is charged with reporting comments by the foreign press which are harmful to the prime minister — even though these comments were reported by most of the Italian press.

Following this legal action, Berlusconi received an open letter from three eminent Italian jurists, now supported by 445,000 people and counting. The letter tells Berlusconi that the only way to prove the questions are “offensive” is not to silence the questioner, but to answer them. The international media has also grown concerned about the current state of affairs, with The Economist suggesting that the PM’s moves are similar to those undertaken by an earlier Italian politician, Benito Mussolini.

The defamation procedures are among a range of moves Berlusconi has taken to secure his hold on the national media. At the beginning of La Repubblica’s 10 questions campaign, Berlusconi urged delegates at an entrepreneurs’ conference to cut advertising spending in La Repubblica, in a move that can only be seen as intimidation.

At the same time, there have been moves to replace directors at the state broadcaster RAI and a refusal by the six main free-to-air channels to broadcast the trailer of Erik Gandini’s filmVideocracy, on the basis of its being “critical of the government”. (The film has just been voted the best documentary at Toronto’s film festival).

The government continues to try to shut down the few investigative or politically critical shows on the RAI channels, like Annozero and Report. On 24 September, discussion programme Annozero went live despite government pressures to stop it, and for the first time the 80 per cent of Italians who rely primarily on television for news had the chance to hear what escort Patrizia D’Addario has to say. On 1 October the show, with a second and longer interview with D’Addario, went live on air again and attracted seven million viewers, a number that will make it hard for the authorities to shut the programme down.

The revelations have been brought up almost exclusively by the press, as the six main national TV channels, whose combined audience share is up to 85 per cent of the total, are directly or indirectly controlled by Berlusconi (three being part of his media empire, and the other three being the RAI state channels).

In Italy, most media criticism of prominent political figures disappears from newspaper headlines within a few days. But this one keeps rolling, thanks to the spicy new details that keep coming up. Just like in the past 15 years, however, the opposition seems unable to stick together and present itself as a serious alternative to Berlusconi’s ruling coalition.

The current media criticism of Berlusconi, much like documentaries such as Videocracy, and Saturday’s protests, has attracted a multitude of readers and fans. But it will have no real impact on society if it is not supported by a serious and clear political alternative. As one Corriere della Sera commentator wrote, people can agree with the campaign and with the documentary, but they will only be ready to make a move if they walk out of a cinema and find a leader like Barack Obama waiting for them.

Berlusconi takes control - Published by the Index on Censorship

Italy’s state-owned broadcaster RAI withdrew its five RAISat channels from News Corp’s Sky Italia satellite platform this month. The news came just a week after the official launch of a new RAI-Mediaset cable platform (TivuSat) to see off competition from Sky. Mediaset is part of Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire.

The General Confederation of Labour, the largest trade union in Italy, has commented that it is “bizarre that RAI is rejecting the economic certainty of a contract with Sky, especially in view of the reduced advertising income due to the economic downturn”. The National Federation of the Press stated: “We cannot avoid observing that the whole negotiation was marred by consistent and regular interventions by the government, and that the final outcome is the most favourable to the prime minister’s company. It is up to RAI’s executives to prove that the decision was not driven by Berlusconi’s personal interests”.

With many media analysts and politicians raising the same concerns, on 10 August the RAI General Director Masi — who was nowhere to be found in the days following the withdrawal — claimed that the use of all RAI channels would have been a driving force for the Sky platform and that RAI would have been exposed to a potential multi-million loss in revenue once the RAI-Mediaset platform began working at full capacity.

In Italy, anyone who owns a television has to pay a licence fee, as in the UK. It costs around 110 euros per year. In my own home in Rome, I don’t receive the analogue air-signal, so I became a Sky client years ago. Now I am in the peculiar situation of being obliged to pay 110 euros per year to RAI, while not enjoying any of the services. I am in fact being forced to switch from Sky to the RAI-Mediaset cable platform.

The whole situation was best summarised by Corriere della Sera’s media analyst A Grasso: “With the switchover to digital and pay-TV, the battle is not between Mediaset and RAI, but between Mediaset and Sky. And RAI seems to have decided to side with Mediaset.” However, it is RAI (ie the Italian taxpayer) and not Mediaset (ie the prime minister) that is set to bear the costs of this media war. Giuseppe Giulietti, spokesman for the freedom of speech organisation Articolo21 says “the creation of a RAI-Mediaset TV monopoly is now a reality. It may well be a coincidence, but the plans of the P2 (the infamous Masonic lodge that numbered Berlusconi and leading establishment figures amongst its members) included the creation of a monopolistic agency for information and the progressive dismantling of state TV.

Berlusconi now seems to be extending his control of Italian television. On 6 August, RAI named its new directors. Among the nominees, there is one who stands out as controversial and possibly not legitimate: the former director of Padania, the daily of Berlusconi’s allied party Lega Nord, is due to step in as vice-director of RAI1. However, RAI1 can only appoint an outside director if it is unable to find a suitable candidate within the organisation.

The main TV channels did not report the revelations about Berlusconi’s controversial sexual habits in detail, but chiefly broadcast comments from leading politicians. Only RAI3 (by far the smallest of RAI channels, especially in terms of budget) dared to take the risk of disturbing the PM’s holidays by reporting some of the taped conversations.

Berlusconi made his annoyance known on 7 August: “We no longer want nor can accept that our state TV is the only one in the world to criticise [its] government.”

The Union of RAI Journalists (USIGRAI) immediately replied: “We also think that we no longer want nor can accept that our state TV, paid for by each and every Italian family, is the only TV in the world to support the personal economical/political interests of our PM Silvio Berlusconi.”

The leader of Italy of Values (IdV) centrist party and former Milan prosecutor A Di Pietro added: “Only in the worst dictatorship does one expect the media to exercise self-censorship, and Berlusconi’s latest comments show us that this is the way we’re headed. The government has shifted from isolating single journalists to the exercise of systematic psychological violence, which is known to be only one small step away from physical violence.”

Honduras: self-censorship is media's daily bread - published by the Index on Censorship

This is a guest post by Olga Iris Mencia Barcenas, translation by Giulio D'Eramo

In the aftermath of the coup against elected-president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, whose mandate was supposed to end in January 2010, press freedom in Honduras has been seriously restricted. The 28 June coup took place as a non-binding referendum was scheduled to be held on possible changes to the constitution. A victory for Zelaya would have paved the way for an additonal referendum on constitutional reform to be held in November together with the presidential election. The opposition and armed forces argued that the real aim was to strengthen the president’s hold on power and remove the one-term limit on the presidency stated in the constitution.

The Supreme Court ruled that the consultation was illegal and Zelaya was forced to flee the country, still in his pyjamas. Roberto Micheletti, a little-known businessman, was hailed as the new head of state and proceeded to temporarily suspend constitutional and individual guarantees, persuading the population that this measure was necessary in order to restore calm and stability. So the coup was accomplished and civil liberties virtually suspended. Freedom of speech stands out among violated rights.

On the day of the coup Allan McDonald, a cartoonist for the newspaper El Diaro was arrested. He was later released and immediately fled the country. The state-run television channel Canal 8 was soon taken off the air. The same happened to Canal 36, owned by the pro-Zelaya journalist Esdras Amado Lopez, who had been running a pro-referendum campaign. Canal 26 presenter Osmand Danilo Corea, journalist Jorge Orlando Anderson and Colon-district reporter Nahum Palacios were also arrested.

Radio Globo, the only broadcaster to report critically on the coup, is now back on the air, thanks to the pressure of honest district attorneys and protection offered by groups linked to the opposition. Its owner was arrested, the building ransacked and employees were attacked. Its editor in chief, David Romero, jumped from a window to escape the soldiers, while presenter Luis Galdamez was arrested.

A few days later Gabriel Fino Noriega, who worked for a local radio station, was shot dead by unknown individuals on the way to his studio.

The only independent magazine, the monthly El Libertador, didn’t even print its June edition due to repeated threats to its editor, Jhoni Lagos. The highly respected Radio Progreso was shut down on several occasions and its presenter Romel Alexander Gomez jailed.

The Committee of Families of those Detained-Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) saw its regular show cancelled by the state-channel that used to host it. This followed a COFADEH report that detailed 1,161 cases of human rights violations perpetrated under Micheletti’s rule.

The repression of opposition media reached its peak on 12 July, when a crew of Venezuela’s Telesura TV were detained and interrogated in their hotel for five hours. They were later escorted to the border and ordered to leave the country.

Many journalists keep on working despite the risks, which have become even greater since Pesident Zelaya clearly stated his intention in coming back and reclaim the power.

With the overwhelming majority of private media supporting the coup, a frightening silence is obscuring whatever happens in this small Latin-American country. The media still in place is censored, journalists are persecuted and self-censorship is their daily bread.