2023-07-09 14:00:09
Roberto Saviano at the Quais du Polar festival, in Lyon (Rhône), March 30, 2019. JEFF PACHOUD / AFP
Roberto Saviano will be the guest of honor at the International Journalism Festival, organized by Groupe Le Monde and The Obs, which will be held from July 14 to 16 in Couthures-sur-Garonne (Lot-et-Garonne). Since the arrival in power in Rome of the government dominated by the national-conservatives of Giorgia Meloni, the Neapolitan writer has found himself at the center of several conflicts which oppose the right-wing majority to part of the world of Italian culture and intellectuals.
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Always threatened with death by the Neapolitan Camorra, the author of Gomorrah, a survey published in 2006 on the sprawling influence of organized crime in Campania which made it famous throughout the world, has been placed under police protection for sixteen years. For his progressive commitments in the public debate, he is also one of the favorite targets of the right in power, which he faces in particular before the courts.
Its presence in the back-to-school program schedules of an Italian public broadcaster, which is also being fully taken over by Ms. Meloni’s political allies, was announced on Friday July 7, creating a certain surprise, in particular because of the trial against it. since November to the chair of the board.
Roberto Saviano is indeed the subject of a complaint for defamation filed by Giorgia Meloni for comments made against him in 2020, when she was only a deputy, comments also targeting Matteo Salvini, then Minister of the Interior and now vice-president of the Council, always carrying a speech of radical hostility to migrants. The writer had treated the two political leaders of “bastards” on a television set after the broadcast of a report showing the death of a Guinean child, drowned in the sinking of a boat transporting migrants from one shore to the other of the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, Giorgia Meloni came to power. However, she remains a civil party in this trial, the last hearing of which was held on June 28, the next being scheduled for October 12.
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Another ongoing trial pits Roberto Saviano against Matteo Salvini, whom he had described in 2018 as “Minister of mala vità”, using an Italian term that designates delinquency and organized crime. Mr. Salvini, then Minister of the Interior, had suggested that the writer be deprived of his police escort. While the testimony of the current number two of the majority was expected at the last hearing held on June 1, he did not appear and the trial was postponed to December.
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