Human dignity and personal safety
11.4.2007
WRITTEN QUESTION E-2125/07
by Renato Brunetta (PPE‑DE)
to the Commission
In its coverage of the investigation into the security failings at Telecom Italia, the Italian press is going so far as to distort and misrepresent the facts (Il Giornale on 14 December 2006, on page 11; La Repubblica on 29 March 2007, on page 31; Il Corriere della Sera on 29 March 2007, page 29; Il Messaggero on 29 March 2007, page 15; Il Corriere della Sera on 30 March 2007, page 19). The articles published have severely endangered the personal safety of Davide Giacalone and grossly violated his personal dignity by implying that he is related to the Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano (a notorious Mafia leader arrested in 2006). In addition, and even more slanderously, the reports claim that a company, allegedly headed by Davide Giacalone, is being used by a criminal gang to set up a marine park in Rome for illicit money-laundering purposes. Davide Giacalone is not related at all, not even distantly, to Provenzano; nor does he not own or run any company that has ever sought funding of any description for a marine park, either in Rome or anywhere else in the world. And yet has name is being published, along with photographs, making him a potential target for criminals, and his honour, is being besmirched by the lurid stain of proximity to, or blood ties with, the Mafia world.
Given that Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (signed and proclaimed by the Presidents of Parliament, the Council, and the Commission at the Nice European Council on 7 December 2000) states that ‘Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected’,
- —How will the Commission protect a citizen whose moral integrity, dignity, and, not least, true family relationships are being destroyed by the media?
- —What steps will it take to protect the personal safety of a citizen now in grave danger because he has been identified in the press as a mafioso and hence a member of the underworld?
- —How will it make the Italian authorities halt the publication of false and tendentious news? What should the Italian authorities do to make the newspapers that have carried the story publish a correction, in the necessary prominent style, to cancel out the lies published about Davide Giacalone?
- —Finally, could the Commission say what it will do to offer better safeguards to European citizens afflicted by similar calamities?
OJ C 45, 16/02/2008