Journalists threatened in Italy. A sea teeming with fish. Ossigeno Annual Report /Part 2

20 March 2025

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After showing the figures of his detections of the violations (see here ) the Italian monitoring center analyses the trend of threats and intimidations directed in 2024 in Italy at media workers with acts of violence, specious legal actions, discrimination, abuses each of which is a violation of freedom of the press and expression. The voluntary association Ossigeno per l’Informazione has continuously monitored these episodes since 2006, and, after having ascertained their validity, openly publishing them on the institutional website www.ossigeno.info. At that web address previous periodic reports can be consulted. 

Edited by Alberto Spampinato

OSSIGENO 20^th  March 2024 – In Italy it never rains but it pours. In 2024, a torrent of threats and intimidations, of serious violations of the right to inform and to be informed deluged  Italian journalists.. This incessant, harmful rain limited freedom of information and directly impaired thousands of journalists, bloggers and defenders of civil rights. It consequently damaged millions of people who were denied the right to receive information. It obscured troublesome  truths, news, ideas, opinions that citizens had the right to know because they were of public interest. Instead the aggressors obstructing through violence or by abusing the right to sue, arbitrarily imposed their censorship. 

In 2024, the abuses and violence committed with this aim and documented by Ossigeno totalled 516, directly damaging the same number of journalists, bloggers and  activists. Many others were affected in similar ways and with the same aim but it was not possible to document these  with the same certainty.

A sea teeming with fish

Ossigeno‘s monitoring casts its net in a sea teeming with fish. So replete that the quantities caught increase pari passu with the number of fishing boats and fishermen, as evidenced in recent years. 

Between 2006 and 2024, Ossigeno‘s monitoring documented 7,555 serious violations of freedom of the press and expression committed in Italy to the detriment of the same number of journalists, bloggers, experts, and activists. Of these, 516 were committed in 2024. The figures do not say that in each of the periods indicated only those violations were committed. What they do say, however, is  how many Ossigeno’s fishing has  been able to “hook”, i.e., detect, ascertain and make public. Experience suggests that if Ossigeno had been able to put more boats to sea, it would have documented many more violations and could have helped many more threatened individuals, because its monitoring also serves to know immediately who is at risk of drowning, and thus can scramble to save them.

The tip of the iceberg

The 516 violations of 2024 and the 7039 violations of the previous period illustrate only the “tip of the iceberg”, the small visible part of this intimidating phenomenon that like the great mountains of ice adrift in the glacial seas, shows only a small part of its enormous mass. Ossigeno‘s work assesses  the extent  of this iceberg of intimidation every year by exploring its discernible tip and obtaining precise and detailed information which Ossigeno then publishes. Eighteen years of these observations have produced the most extensive and detailed documentation among those available on the intimidations, threats and retaliations that violent and bullying individuals direct at journalists, bloggers, and activists to prevent them from publishing troublesome information. This documentation has allowed Ossigeno to understand this phenomenon of which little was known and even less talked about. Ossigeno’s research has made known with good approximation what is the nature, consistency and origin of these intimidating acts, what are the recurring dynamics, what are the crimes and the illegal methods, what are the causes of the scandalous, almost total impunity that protects the aggressors, and how the behaviour of the aggressors and victims has changed over time.

Helping those who suffer intimidation

Ossigeno collects information through the voluntary work of expert professionals and collaborators who receive fair compensation. The observers apply an explicit methodology, made public since 2013. The information is published whilst  respecting the rules and ethics of journalism. The main purpose of this monitoring of the illicit limitations of freedom of the press and expression is to reveal promptly the intimidations as they occur in order to enhance the possibility of helping those who are victims. 

The forms of help and support are varied: personal support interventions, declarations  of solidarity to halt the isolation of the victim, legal advice and opinions, and coverage of defence costs in legal trials. By carrying out this activity, Ossigeno urges all those who work in support of freedom of information to provide similar mediation  as long as the problem continues to manifest itself in the current forms and extent, creating thousands of victims every year and affecting individuals  who do not have the necessary means to defend themselves.

The endemic disease

The limitations of freedom of expression imposed with violence, with specious legal actions are facilitated by punitive legislation and procedures and spread like a  contagious disease. This disease has historical roots and is by now endemic. It claims thousands of new victims every year and weakens Italian democracy. Public institutions should treat this disease  and eradicate it but they continue instead to ignore it. Politicians  prefer to utilize  the old instruments inherited from the Fascist regime (such as prison for defamation and procedures that denunciate critical thinking) that nourish the disease. Journalists and publishers are unable to form a united front. Solidarity with those threatened could nullify the effect of intimidation, but this solidarity is teetering. And the threats continue, both in the usual forms that have long been documented and with significant new developments each year that increase concern.

The main new developments of 2024

Ossigeno highlights:

1. Several cases of journalists stopped by the police in Rome, Padua and Messina while covering protests

2. Defamation: citations for millions of euros in damages and a sentence of 8 months in prison

3. Failure to bring trials for calumny against plaintiffs who acted with false and reckless accusations

4. The use of Trojan spyware and invasive searches to discover the sources of journalists not under investigation, as highlighted by the cases of Paolo Orofino and Simone Innocenti 

5. New legislative measures that have narrowed the scope of judicial reporting

6. The ‘automatic’ blackout of news due to new rules on the right to be forgotten

7. The entry into the arena of the Prime Minister in support of the fake reform of the current system regarding libel under consideration by parliament with proposed measures that journalists judge inadequate and counterproductive

8. The critical report of the European Commission on the rule of law, which accused Italy of a series of failures and made specific recommendations, so far ignored by the Italian  government

9. The increased recourse by members of the government to lawsuits to discover the confidential sources of journalists.

10. Over 50% of SLAPPs are initiated by public entities and institutions

11. The underestimation by national and international observers of intimidations against Italian journalists. 

A River in Torrent

For the rest, the intimidations and threats against journalists have continued as before, with the same frequency and repetitiveness, weakening critical voices and impoverishing an information world already afflicted by serious problems. The consequences are described in more detail in another section of this Report.

The situation in Italy has been clear for some time: the high number of intimidations against journalists and the impunity of those who make  them are rooted in the survival of anachronistic laws (inherited from the Fascist regime that had no respect for freedom of expression and the safety of journalists) and in judicial procedures that are disadvantageous for the victims of these intimidations.

The Dark Side

The part of this problem that remains obscure and undocumented, is very large. For various reasons; most victims remain silent, for fear of further retaliation, like anyone who is subjected to blackmail or extortion  and there is a lack of comprehensive official data. International observation centres observe only superficially and provide only a few snippets of the dramatic Italian film as it uncoils, thus contributing to an underestimation of the problem. The only public observation centre in Italy, established at the Ministry of the Interior, counts only the intimidations and threats resulting from formal complaints presented by the attacked journalists (in 2024 they were no more than a fifth of those identified by Ossigeno). Observation centres politically independent and equipped with much more adequate resources are needed to describe and quantify such a vast and deep-rooted phenomenon that concerns violations of fundamental rights. This has been emphasized several times by UNESCO and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe who have praised the monitoring work carried out by Ossigeno per l’Informazione, identifying  it as an example of good practice to be extended to other countries.

 Intimidatory pressure

Threats and intimidation occurred in all months of the year and in all Italian regions. The highest number of threats and intimidation was recorded in Veneto, Lazio and Umbria. The strongest intimidatory pressure was in Liguria and Veneto. The largest  source  of the threats came from public entities and institutions (26%) and for the rest from the social environment (15%), and from the criminal world (13%). Some sectors of the media  are particularly exposed to these disproportionate actions. For example, among sports journalists who cover football, 26% of intimidations were recorded. In 2024, three out of four intimidations (76%) were carried out with violent actions and for the rest (23%) with specious legal actions (of which 50% with lawsuits). 

SLAPPs, these unknowns

To those intimidations carried out with violent methods were added just as many attempts at intimidation through legal means.. These were mainly specious complaints, summonses for damages in relation to unfounded accusations of libel and high-handed extrajudicial warnings. All abusive legal actions that according to recent European directives constitute violations of freedom of expression and are defined as SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits to Prevent Public Participation), intimidations that deserve more public attention and several legislative countermeasures. Ossigeno has published a dossier (SLAPPs in Italy 2022-2024) that indicates 132 of them were recorded in Italy in the three-year period 2022-2024 to the detriment of 290 journalists. In 2024 the European Union approved a Directive (a European legislative act) to combat a small number of them: those that cross borders, that is, those that involve civil justice procedures in more than one member country at the same time. Those that concern only one country are excluded. The Directive provides countermeasures that Italy should apply extensively, even to legal actions initiated with criminal proceedings (lawsuits) and even if they concern only Italy.

Penelope’s Web

Draft legislation  has been lying in parliament for thirty years with the declared aim of eliminating the too easy and widespread abuse of the right to sue for libel. It would also completely eliminate the prison sentence and rectifying those punitive procedures that force anyone who is sued to face a trial (and the related costs) even if the accusations are false and unfounded and the news is true and of public interest. This draft legislation is a Penelope’s Web, woven during the day and undone every night, so that it can always be exhibited incomplete as an excuse. In 2024, the draft legislation has made no progress while thousands of new lawsuits have reached the courts. As has been the case for many years, these lawsuits are having negative consequences, as demonstrated by official data from the Ministry of Justice. Read the dossier of Ossigeno, “Shut up or I’ll sue you!” published on 25/10/2016 and the summary of the data contained in the dossier.

The cases both visible and invisible

Few incidents have received attention from newspapers and radio and television news. As in previous years, only a few have been reported with great prominence. Among them, the judicial search of the journalist Simone Innocenti, the eight-month prison sentence of the journalist Pasquale Napolitano (see here) , and the case of the journalist Andrea Joly, beaten in Turin by far-right extremists. 

Much media attention has also been given to the story of the writer Antonio Scurati and the journalist Serena Bortone, censored by the state broadcaster RAI which prevented the broadcasting of the criticisms addressed by Scurati to the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni. Cases of intimidation of highly renowned journalists have also received great coverage. Many other cases of threatened journalists would have deserved the same attention and instead inexplicably did not appear in the newspapers.

The shield given by visibility

The media silence on threats to journalists has negative consequences. It is certain that journalists and bloggers hit by intimidation and threats are able to defend themselves and resist better if they have public and media visibility. Yet many of them in 2024 (as in previous years) found themselves having to face these cases in silence, in complete isolation. To give visibility to those threatened in Italy, Ossigeno made the cases of each of them known as soon as it determined their validity. It did the same in previous years for the other 7039 threatened (see www.ossidogeno.info). Making it known promptly that a journalist has been threatened, intimidated, sued on an equivocal  basis, making it known that he or she is being unjustly targeted by someone, is the first action  that should be taken. Italian public institutions should ensure this by creating a portal following the example of the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalists. The media world should do it. Organizations that defend freedom of the press should do it. It should always be done, systematically and would be a formidable help to all victims of censorship and other similar abuses.

Knowing the rules

Another unfulfilled expectation concerns the basic training of all those who disseminate information online, through radio and TV and in conventional newspapers. Everyone should be well-versed in the framework of the legislative and ethical norms within which media activity can be conducted. The rules are extensive  but easy to understand. As easy as the highway code or football rules. Knowing them well is better than discovering them only when a lawsuit arrives or a protest, a threat, an intimidation, a specious complaint, as often happens. Knowing the rules helps you react better and also defend yourself in the event of disputes and intimidation. For this reason, Ossigeno, in collaboration with the Order of Journalists, organizes training courses that do not replace schools of journalism but teach you how to drive your own vehicle through the labyrinthine streets of information without causing damage. Furthermore, in 2024, Ossigeno gave free advice and consultations, provided peer-to-peer assistance from expert journalists and from lawyers specialized in media law. In 13 cases, it provided free legal assistance to deal with legal proceedings that were considered specious, reckless and unfounded. 

Legal assistance for frivolous lawsuits

In Italy, anyone who is sued for libel  or sued for damages from alleged defamation must bear considerable expenses even in the face of unfounded or frivolous accusations, due to lawsuits that should be inadmissible. The right of a citizen to go to a judge accusing a person of having defamed him is sacrosanct, but it should not include, as it does today, the certainty that in any case for each lawsuit  a legal proceeding will be opened against the accused calling him or her to appoint (and pay) a lawyer. 

In other countries lawsuits  pass through admissibility filters, precisely to prevent the right to seek justice from being exploited and transformed into a punitive tool before a judge has ruled. In other countries lawsuits are much more justified than those in Italy where regular libel trials are sanctioned for their recklessness. In Italy libel lawsuits  are often an instrument of the incorrect use of judicial proceedings, to make those who have simply published unwelcome news, those who have expressed ideas and opinions that are not shared, and those who have clearly committed no crime or wrongdoing, suffer the anguish and costs of a trial. 

The Italian data on the outcome of defamation trials demonstrate the extent of the enormous exploitive use that is made of them. These data show that 9 times out of 10 the defendants are acquitted. But rarely do they obtain reimbursement of the expenses incurred and this damages those Italian journalists whose  expenses are not covered by their publisher, that is, the majority of them. The Italian parliament knows this well and for thirty years has promised to reform the law. But until the parliament has approved this reform it will be necessary to support journalists sued on a specious basis by helping them to pay their legal costs, which relative to the low wages of the majority of Italian journalists are considerable. Ossigeno offers this assistance free of charge through its Legal Help Desk, which in 2024 provided this service to 13 journalists and bloggers

“Partial” freedom of the press

Only in recent years has public opinion begun to become aware of the problem of intimidation and threats to journalists, the frequent limitation of freedom of expression, and the size and consequences of the problem. Attention began to grow around 2006, following some sensational threats to Italian journalists and the initiatives of the government led by Silvio Berlusconi. 

These events aroused the interest of international observers. Freedom House and Reporters without Borders, the most accredited observation centres on freedom of the press, based on the opinions of Italian experts, began to classify Italy’s freedom of the press as “partially free” in their annual reports, less free than that of other countries in the European Union. 

Over time, this humiliating diagnosis has only partially improved. In the following years, the highest multilateral institutions (UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, UNESCO, European Union) repeatedly addressed formal recommendations to the Italian authorities, inviting them to resolve shortcomings, to fill gaps, to overcome a series of failures, to respect the obligations set out in this field by the Treaties signed by Italy, in particular two UN Conventions of 1996 (one on civil and political rights and one on economic, social and cultural rights), and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which since 1 December 2009, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, has binding legal status for EU countries.

”There is too much freedom of the press” it is said.

The Italian authorities have always ignored the recommendations and diagnoses of international reports, with one exception. In 2010, when Freedom House placed Italy 72nd in the ranking of 180 countries in the world in terms of freedom of the press, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – then the subject of strong protests for conflicts of interest in the field of media and for attempts to limit the use of wiretaps by judges and the publication of their content – ​​openly refuted the negative judgment on Italy, with these words: “If there is one thing that is clear for all to see it is that in Italy «there is too much freedom of the press”.

Ossigeno‘s journey and the discovery of specious lawsuits

In 2007, faced with these attitudes and some sensational threats, the organisation Ossigeno per l’Informazione began to document the threats to journalists, one by one, and to spread objective news and analyses on them, making known with empirical evidence  the true nature of the overall issue of the use of intimidation for the purpose of preventing the publication of news unwelcome to organized crime or to political and economic power. 

There were many specious lawsuits  but the systematic nature of these abuses was still little known, even within the media world. Ossigeno‘s work, showing their nature, size, and systematic nature with many examples, brought it to light. It showed the Italian paradox of the thousands of intimidations directed at journalists through specious lawsuits. It showed that international institutions attributed a general intimidating nature to the provisions of the legal code that provide for prison for journalists guilty of libel  and to the 1948 press law that provides for its application in an aggravated form. Until then, the issue had not entered the public debate. 

Terra Incognita

The Ossigeno news and the periodic reports produced since 2010 have explored “this terra incognita ” populated by thousands of invisible victims: journalists in serious difficulty for having published news that were uncomfortable for those in power. This documentation has shed light on all aspects of the problem and, even if only in part,  has ruptured the great prevailing silence. It has put an end to the attempts (once blatant and recurring) to deny the problem by saying that these negative events do not happen in Italy. 

The Ossigeno Reports are its way  of talking about the problem. But they have not solved it. They have promoted greater awareness even among journalists’ organizations. They have helped thousands of threatened journalists to break out from isolation, to find solidarity and legal assistance. They promoted solidarity among journalists. With thousands of examples, 

Ossigeno has shown the importance of objectively evaluating the correctness of the actions of each threatened journalist, of judging behaviours based solely on compliance with ethical duties and not on political and ideological orientations or the publisher for which they work

Teetering Solidarity

Professional solidarity has made great strides in this direction. The fact remains that many journalists and observers still cannot look at things through these eyes.

This explains why many threatened journalists do not find the full and effective solidarity they deserve. Decades of biased, highly politicized reporting with newspapers divided by ideological barriers, weigh heavily. Since 1989, Europe is no longer divided by the Iron Curtain. But certain criteria from that era continue to weigh heavily and influence behaviour.

When opposing blocs divided journalists

Even Italian society was divided into two opposing blocs until the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). Political life and newspapers were divided by that Wall and to work, journalists had to take one side or the other. This led them to judge everything and every person based on the political-ideological matrix. Even threats to journalists were evaluated with that yardstick. A newspaper defended its journalists and its friends, but only them. It was difficult to conceive of information as a right to be exercised with objective ethical rules. And there was a high tolerance, even acceptance, of undue pressure exerted on journalists by those in power and the judiciary. Blatant interference in the freedom of the press, in the right to report, in the freedom of expression that today raise criticism and protests were considered an expression of political dialectics, unavoidable complications that had to be taken into account and treated with tact and caution. In that world, the victim of these intrusions could only be defended by his or her colleagues on the same side. Deontological evaluations, the merit of the facts, were worth little. It was normal to mock and isolate victims belonging to the opposing side, often even blamed by their own colleagues. These criteria also applied to those punitive legal actions that at the time had no name, those baptized by Ossigeno as specious complaints. Although they were numerous and sensational episodes had occurred – such as the 2001 conviction of Claudio Riolo to pay compensation of 140 million lire, a conviction subsequently revoked by the European Court of Human Rights – the media world was not aware of the systematic specious use that was made of defamation lawsuits. Then it was not yet clear that it was a systematic activity and had roots in anachronistic laws and in the incorrect, exploitive abuse of legal proceedings. No one imagined that it was claiming thousands of innocent victims.

The problem that was not apparent

The intimidations were many and were growing in number. But they were not perceived as the manifestation of the same phenomenon, in which all had the objective of limiting the right to report and to express opinion by violating or forcing the law. Few examples were known. Many were kept quiet, minimized, justified by the political struggle. Other episodes came to light, but were presented as sporadic events, as reactions to extreme gestures by journalists, to their biases. Few journalists obtained solidarity from their professional organizations, 20 cases in 2006, and another 20 in 2007.

The documentation work of Ossigeno per l’Informazione raised attention and created greater awareness and visibility of the problem, also among journalists and their organizations. The first reports on threats to journalists, delivered to the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano in 2009 and 2012, caused a sensation. Those reports documented hundreds of incidents, indicated the names of the victims, the recurring dynamics, the origins in laws and punitive procedures. The quantitative data in those reports seems small today but at the time it was revelatory and focused unprecedented attention on the problem.

Mafia threats

A great sense of frustration was felt by journalists especially  those involved in news and investigative journalism; those who reported the facts with professionalism and courage, whilst respecting the rules of the right to information and who suffered threats and reprisals. Some did not find the support and solidarity necessary to resist and to persevere. It should be remembered that from 1960 to 1988 11 journalists were killed in Italy (8 in Sicily, one in Naples, one in Turin, and one in Milan). These last three were Giancarlo Siani (1985), Mauro Rostagno (1988), and Beppe Alfano (1993). See www.giornalistiuccisi.it

In 2007, journalists’ frustration reached a peak when Lirio Abbate, Rosaria Capacchione and Roberto Saviano, three well-known journalists appreciated for their reporting, received death threats from the Mafia and Camorra crime syndicates and were placed under permanent police escort. The issue of journalists’ safety was at the centre of the 2007 national congress of the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), which enthusiastically welcomed the proposal to support the creation of the Ossigeno observatory on threats to journalists and news suppressed by violence, a proposal signed immediately afterwards by the national council of the Order of Journalists.

The register of threatened journalists

In just a few years, Ossigeno has produced impressive objective documentation of the phenomenon of threats to freedom of information, identifying and studying the most significant incidents and making them known on the web with quality journalism, analyses and comments. This work has created a real register of journalists threatened in Italy. An encyclopaedia that for each incident indicates the names of those threatened, descriptions of the violence and abuse suffered in clear violation of the right to information and analysing the evolution of the phenomenon over time, with periodic reports, conferences and lessons on media  ethics. 

The list contained in this register has grown year after year, reaching 7555 names in 2024. It offers proof that among the serious problems that afflict Italy there is that of threats addressed to journalists for having published news that is  inconvenient for those in power. This problem is literally the most dramatic. This list helps to put yourself in the shoes of a threatened person. It makes you understand that these threats put at risk the personal safety of the journalist’s family and of publishing companies and  their economic sustainability. These threats can make it difficult to practice journalism as before, because in many cases the journalist has to face expenses, often out of his or her own pocket, but also above all because others tend to isolate the threatened journalist as though afflicted with the plague. Few recognize the journalist’s status as an innocent victim. Many think that the journalist must be at fault. Others distance themselves by saying: but who made him or her do it? The journalist shouldn’t have published those things and hence such critics essentially praise self-censorship which is the antithesis of the right to report and freedom of expression.

The ignored right

How can we explain the inattention and underestimation of a problem of this proportion? These attitudes are explained, at least in part, by the poor knowledge of the legal bases that defend freedom of expression and define information as a right. Few know of this right. Many know it only in very broad terms. Citizens are unaware that this right  allows one to freely express one’s thoughts, even in a critical way and to freely report without suffering censorship and retaliation , the most controversial facts, even those that make influential people with power appear in a bad light. This ignorance prevents the public from seeing these intimidations and threats as violations that also damage them, even if they directly damage journalists, bloggers, and activists who expose themselves by publishing uncomfortable, unwelcome facts and opinions. If this right were more widely known, the threats and intimidations that hinder its exercise would be checked by a broad front and requests to counter them with legislative and other measures would weigh more heavily on the political debate. Instead, in 2024 the problem with serious consequences has continued to manifest itself undisturbed, as in the past, but now also with new and more worrying methods, a clear indication  of the gravity of the phenomenon and its mutation. ASP /wt

 – – – REPORT MADE BY THE OSSIGENO MONITORING CENTER —

Director: Alberto Spampinato

Detection of intimidation, verification and publication of data: Laura Turriziani

Data processing by Grazia Pia Attolini

Translation by William Thuburn

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