On Facci I won't let myself be dragged along - Rai CEO

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 11 - Newly appointed Rai CEO Roberto Sergio said Tuesday he would make up his own mind about entrusting a new programme to a journalist who is at the centre of a political storm in relation to alleged sexism and victim blaming towards a young woman who has reported Senate speaker Ignazio La Russa's son Leonardo for alleged sexual assault.
    "It is not my habit to decide on the basis of instrumental and emotional political campaigns," Sergio told the state broadcaster's board of directors amid calls for Rai to refrain from giving the new slot on Rai 2 to Filippo Facci after he wrote in an article in Libero on Saturday: "a 22-year-old girl was undoubtedly high on cocaine before getting high on Leonardo Apache La Russa".
    The phrase sparked a storm of criticism from opposition parties and the condemnation of the Italian National Press Federation FNSI and other journalists' groups amid claims by Facci he is being instrumentalised to attack the government. "I don't get dragged along by anyone, which is why I will communicate the decision I have taken, taking full responsibility for it, and in any case within a short period of time," said Sergio.
    On Monday the president of the Rai parliamentary oversight committee Barbara Floridia called on the state broadcaster to take strict action in relation to the case.
    "We are getting ready to work on the new service contract: it would be useless, contradictory and above all debasing to talk about inclusion, equal opportunities, the fight against gender violence and sexism, if then all of this might even run the risk of being contradicted by events," wrote Floridia, a representative of the populist opposition Five Star Movement (M5S).
    "Respect for certain principles and values is at the basis of civil coexistence and of the very concept of public service," she continued.
    "In addition to the attention given by the oversight committee to the case, I expect a serious and strict stance to be taken by the company," concluded Floridia.
    The Senate speaker, a leader of Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, has also come under fire for using allegedly sexist language against the young woman who filed the complaint against his son for allegedly sexually assaulting her at his home after a night at a Milan disco on May 18 and questioning her version of events on grounds she had consumed cocaine and made the report 40 days after the alleged assault.
    On Sunday Equal Opportunities Minister Eugenia Roccella also stepped into the row by appearing to defend Ignazio La Russa on the basis of the fact that he is the alleged suspect's father.
    (ANSA).