[rohrpost] Gasparri shuts off Italian neighborhood TV channel

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

Senigallia, Italy, 26 July 2004

Senigallia, a small resort city on Italy's Adriatic coast, has recently 
been the subject of a lot of controversy after a police order closed 
down a local television station. Aside from being a popular seaside 
destination, it is the home of Disco Volante, one of the first public 
access TV channels in Italy. The small station, which broadcasts within 
the old city walls, started out as a community organization that worked 
with handicapped and socially disadvantaged residents. Despite being 
recent recipients of the Ilaria Alpi award for journalism, named after 
the Italian reporter killed while investigating arms dealers in Somalia 
in the early 90s, its staff now risks time behind bars.

In September 2003, Disco Volante was notified by the Italian 
Communications Ministry that they were operating outside the law. They 
were ordered to immediately cease operations. Its organizers, by now 
well-known and respected in the community for their work with the 
mentally challenged, decided to keep things going.  In June 2004 their 
small production company, Street TV, produced a report on the hardships 
faced by the local handicapped residents that earned them the 
prestigious Alpi award.

Today, 10 months after being tossed out of their improvised studios, the 
trial which will decide Disco Volante's future has yet to take place.

With the recent approval of the Gasparri / Gonfalonieri law, which 
orders the reorganization of Italy's telecommunications monopoly, Disco 
Volante is once again feeling the heat. But, its founders, community 
leaders who truly believe in what they do, are not going down without a 
fight.

Translated by Brendan Monaghan

Contact Information:

Telestreet / Disco Volante
Press Office
Via Rodi, 6
60019 Senigallia (AN)
Italy

tel + 39 071 650 33
tel + 39 071 634 95

web www.telestreet.it
web www.studiozelig.it
email studio.zelig at tiscali.it
email fabriman at tiscali.it

-------------------------------------------

Press Release from National Federation of Newspaper Journalists (Italy)

The regional prosecutor of the city of Ancona, in Italy's Marches 
region, has recently sent out a notice of investigation to the founders 
of a small television station in the seaside resort city of Senigallia. 
The initiative came as a surprise to the organization Telestreet / Disco 
Volante, made up of and dedicated to the handicapped residents of the 
town. The decision is a result of the recent decision of the Italian 
Ministry of Communications to restructure the Italian television 
broadcasting. Once again, the Ministry, under the leadership of Maurizio 
Gasparri, is taking a strike at the "weakest links" in the 
telecommunications industry. The law, which carries Gasparri's name, 
will guarantee Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi more control 
over a majority of the Italy's networks. Last month Disco Volante 
received the prestigious Ilaria Alpi award for journalism for a report 
they produced on obstacles faced by Senigallia's handicapped residents. 
Despite all of that, the judiciary of the City of Ancona ordered that 
Telestreet immediately cease operations and that the legal proceedings 
against them begin immediately. The charge? Illegal television 
broadcasting. Mediaset and RAI, despite being in gross violation of 
certain laws regulating the diffusion of publicity, continue to operate 
with impunity. Meanwhile, small local stations such as Telestreet can be 
crushed in an instant. Is this the future of the diffusion of 
information in Italy?


Translated by Brendan Monaghan

-------------------------

Gasparri shuts off neighborhood TV channel run by handicapped residents
from www.articolo21.com 28 July 2004

by Daniela Amenta (L'Unita')

As if shutting them down wasn't enough, the authorities went as far as 
to continue their legal battle against Disco Volante, a small 
neighborhod TV channel run by the handicapped community of Senigallia. 
The editors and staff of the tiny TV channel who only wished to document 
the life and hardships faced by the disabled residents now risk being 
put behind bars. 18 months of detention, to be exact. A would-be 
consequence of Italy's new Gasparri Law, the latest paradox in the 
initiative the save Rete4, a major TV network owned by Italian Prime 
Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Disco Volante started out in the small 
resort city on Italy's Adriatic coast. With a small staff including 
members of disabled community, they used their channel as a way of 
increasing public awareness of the everyday obstacles and injustices 
faced by the physically and mentally challenged residents of Senigallia. 
Disco Volante broadcasts to viewers in a range of a couple of hundred 
meters within the city walls, tiny, yes, but enough to get the 
authorities to intervene.

Operating without proper permission was enough to get them silenced. In 
September 2003 a report was sent to the magistrate of the city of 
Ancona. Yesterday the Ancona prosecutor notified the channel's founder, 
Enea Discepoli, that the legal proceedings against him for "Broadcasting 
activity without proper government authorization" were about to begin. 
Now Discepoli risks going to jail. It didn't seem to matter much when 
Rete4 was operating in violation of certain laws. Nor did it matter that 
Disco Volante had recently earned the Ilaria Alpi award for journalism 
for their reports on the handicapped community of Senigallia. "A prize 
we earned by for our hard work," comments Discepoli, "for documenting a 
report on the typical day of Franco Civelli, a disabled man confined to 
a wheelchair". First the damage, now the controversy.

A similar thing happened in 2002 to Telefabbrica, a TV channel founded 
to support the Fiat workers in Termini Imerese in their struggle to 
prevent mass lay offs. In Italy, there are about a hundred of these 
small "street TV" channels, usually convening in tiny improvised 
studios. Their main scope to ensure freedom of information and to 
protest against the huge monopolies of the telecommunications industry. 
They report on the social and progressive issues being faced by the 
community, using real people and examples. A difficult task in an 
industry where the richest and most powerful prevail.

Giovanna Grignaffini, a deputy of Italy's Democrats of the Left 
political party, collected the signatures of about 100 members of 
parliament to save "street TV". The petition eventually made it to the 
chamber of deputies in October 2003 and the deputies requested that the 
government not shut down these "street TV" channels without a thorough 
investigation into why their activities were illegal. These pleads were 
of course never taken into consideration by Gasparri.

Disco Volante broadcasted only for about 4 months. Today they operate 
without antennas and continue to be defiant in the face of what they see 
as a grand injustice. "We're not giving up now. We still have our 
cameras we'll keep filming everything happening around us for as long as 
we can," says Fabrizio Manizza, staff member and editor. "We work with 
the disabled and it's a wonderful experience in creativity and art. It's 
also important for the freedom of information." Perhaps another type of 
information, which, for some reason is not included in the future plans 
of those running the country. "First, they approve the Gonfalonieri / 
Gasparri Law and the SIC and without moving a finger they give their 
blessing to RAI and Finivest to do whatever they want. But then they 
come knocking on the door of our small channel, threatening us with 
prison time. Does anyone want to comment on that?" adds Manizza. It 
stirs up emotion, yes, and it would stir up even more reporting on the 
fact that the Association of Roman Jurists declared such moves by the 
authorities to be "illegitimate abuses of power". For now, Disco Volante 
remains silenced, but its founders and believers aren't giving up so 
easily. And so, the battle against those who silence those they don't 
like, will continue.

Translated by Brendan Monaghan
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          /c_"/   Tatiana Bazzichelli
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