Italy: Molotov cocktail threat against Italian reporter
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns an attempt earlier this week to intimidate Floriana Bulfon, a reporter for the news weekly L’Espresso who specializes in covering organized crime in Rome and the surrounding region.
Everything suggests that the Molotov cocktail found on the passenger seat of Bulfon’s car on 8 April was an intimidatory message from the Casamonica clan, a mafia family operating in Rome and nearby areas. She has received threats and insults from this gang in the past.
“Covering mafia groups often puts Italy’s journalists in great danger,” said Pauline Adès-Mevel, the head of RSF’s European Union and Balkans desk. “Floriana Bulfon is being targeted by a criminal organization whose aim is clearly to deter her from pursuing her investigative reporting. We urge the Italian authorities to take immediate, concrete measures to protect her, and to firmly and publicly condemn threats of this kind.”
Investigative journalists are often targeted by mafia groups in Italy. An attempt to murder Paolo Borrometi, a specialist in the Sicilian mafia, was thwarted by the police in Sicily in May 2018. Around 20 Italian journalists are currently receiving around-the-clock police protection.
Italy is ranked 46th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.
Italy
