Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment
Five Star Movement (M5S) party, writing in a post on Grillo's
blog Wednesday, compared national television news program TG1 to
a "regime worthy of the worst South American dictatorship".
In the blog post, M5S MP Alberto Airola wrote, "I'm furious
over the obvious and outrageous disinformation that goes on in
this country, and for the fact that so many citizens continue to
drink down the fabrications of this riff-raff".
Last Monday, M5S MPs and Senators including Airola signed
an interrogation calling for the firing of TG1 director Mario
Orfeo and journalists Alberto Matano and Claudia Mazzola.
The move came after the journalists referred to an August
16 article by M5S MP Alessandro Di Battista in which he
suggested that Western powers should negotiate with the Islamic
State (ISIS) fundamentalist militia that published a video of
one of its cohorts beheading American journalist James Foley.
Orfeo responded to the call for his resignation by saying
that M5S was orchestrating a situation similar to that of 12
years ago, known as the "Bulgarian edict," when three popular TV
figures - veteran journalist Enzo Biagi, TV presenter and
journalist Michele Santoro and satirist Daniele Luttazzi -
disappeared from RAI's airwaves in 2002 after being criticised
by then premier Silvio Berlusconi on a visit to Bulgaria.
All three were accused by Berlusconi of having slashed his
May 2001 election lead by making "criminal" use of state TV.
In the post, Airola claims that Orfeo is a political
"puppet" and wrote, "These lowlifes will pay, maybe not now, but
definitely someday."
One of the journalists cited in Wednesday's post, Rainews24
director Monica Maggioni, told ANSA on Wednesday, "The tone and
quality of the M5S attacks are what really resemble a South
American dictatorship, but if the objective is to intimidate us,
once again they haven't succeeded".
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