“Today something serious happened in our editorial office.” Thus begins the article that appeared in the afternoon on the website of the online newspaper Fanpage.it, signed by the managing director Francesco Cancellato. In the article, Cancellato explains the decision of the Gip of Rome to order the seizure, by means of blackout, of the videos that contain the “Follow The Money” investigation on Claudio Durigon, Northern League Undersecretary at the Ministry of Economy. Regarding the decision of the Gip, Senator Sandro Ruotolo and the secretary of the Italian Left Nicola Fratoianni have announced that they will present a question to the Minister of Justice Cartabia.
The investigation became the hottest case in recent months, after Fanpage published it last April. It documents Durigon’s involvement in the 49 million euro affair that Matteo Salvini’s party had obtained fraudulently between 2008 and 2010.
Money of which there was no trace in the accounts of the League, and which therefore had prevented the Guard of Fiananza from proceeding with the confiscation. The Genoa prosecutor had given a mandate to the yellow flames to investigate the disappearance of the money, and it is the outcome of these investigations that sparked the case around Durigon.
Fanpage had published the video of an interception in which the Undersecretary, speaking with an interlocutor, revealed to the latter not to worry about the 49 million, since the head of the Guardia di Finanza, Giuseppe Zafarana, “we put it” . Immediately after the publication of the content, Durigon had proceeded to sue the editors of Fanpage.
Durigon resigned from his post a month ago, following the case that broke out in the Latina park named after Arnaldo Mussolini, announcing his decision with a long letter and after an intense back and forth within the party. Resignation that the former Undersecretary had always promptly denied in the previous weeks, regarding the Fanpage investigation.
“This is a provision that refers to practices never used in Italy that limits the freedom of the press and that affects us all. This is why we cannot be silent. As journalists, as readers and as citizens », Canceled continues.
What Fanpage disputes is not the complaints brought by Durigon, but the initiation of a seizure proceeding where the constitutional conditions do not exist to justify the choice.
«Article 21 – continues Deleted – says that the press cannot be subject to authorization or censorship. Seizure can only be carried out by reasoned act of the judicial authority in the case of crimes, for which the law on the press expressly authorizes it, or in the case of violation of the rules that the law itself prescribes for the indication of those responsible “.
Seize in advance, or without the “motivated act” mentioned above, any journalistic product, it is possible “only where crimes other than defamation are hypothesized. That’s not the case”.
«It cannot be seized if there is no longer any precautionary license», Deleted continues, from the moment in which «as the video and the news were taken up by several newspapers, they circulate on the net and are therefore in the public domain. Furthermore, it is not possible, as the investigating judge did, to proceed against unknown persons, when the authors of the content and the director of the newspaper that publishes it are known. Being investigated and registered would allow the managers of the Fanpage team to defend themselves, while a file against unknown persons does not preclude this possibility.
“A journalistic investigation will be put offline, when the measure will be carried out, without any conviction, any procedure or investigation”, concludes Cancellato.
Currently, “Follow The Money” is still visible on the channels of the online newspaper.