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.
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