What to do if Bari’s aggression recalls that of Ostia

The aggravating factor of the Mafia method was challenged to the man who hit Piervincenzi because he intended to intimidate all journalists who have the audacity to ask questions

The main analogies between the aggression of Bari to Maria Grazia Mazzola and that of Ostia to Daniele Pievincenzi and Edoardo Anselmi are these: the type of aggressor, the triggering reason, the circumstances. But there are also other, perhaps more illuminating and interesting to analyze and that concern the disproportionate use of violence and the indifference to the foreseeable public reaction.

It is clear that in both cases the attackers reacted to the questions of journalists not only with gratuitous violence, but without caring about the inevitable reaction of condemnation by the public opinion, which occurred in both cases and which had a boomerang effect, that is with at least apparently counterproductive consequences.

So let us ask ourselves why Roberto Spada and Ms. Monica Laera, while being able to foresee these consequences, have chosen to reaffirm with violence an impassable refusal that they had already opposed with words, defying public reaction?

Probably because they wanted to give journalists a lesson, not only to those three impertinent, but to all their colleagues. They wanted to show what happens to those who break the implicit prohibition of asking questions to mobsters and to people connected to them or connected by family or other bonds. They wanted to intimidate not only those three nuisances who had transgressed the rule, but all journalists.

In the case of the Ostia aggression, the magistrates of the DDA reasoned precisely in this way, challenging the crime of private violence aggravated by the mafia method towards the journalist. And the investigating judge has accepted the request. They acted the same way when they arrested Paolo Borrometi’s assailant, on November 25, 2017. Two decisions that marked a turning point in this field.

We should pay more attention to these aspects of the question, to ask for consistency of behavior and also to realize that sometimes we can take some steps forward in contrasting those who use the force of intimidation to silence journalists. And it turns out that it could be done by starting to apply in a timely and correct manner some of the rules that have been in our codes for a long time.

ASP (gt)