Long Journey Home

Endocrinologist Giovanni Frajese’s speech at the National Rally of the association ContiamoCI! in Vicenza, Italy on July 30, 2022.

Fourth Estate

Within less than one year, Italy dropped from 41st to 58th position in the World Press Freedom Index based on the ranking compiled and published annually by the French non-governmental organisation Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders).

Ayshia Taşkın, How Do You Draw A Line Under Pressure?, 2019–2020. Courtesy of WikiArt.

To be, or not to be

The intervention of endocrinologist Giovanni Frajese on the occasion of the scientific conference “Pandemic — An Invitation to Confrontation” held January 3, 2021 at the Hotel Nazionale in Piazza di Monte Citorio in Rome, Italy under the auspices of the no green pass associations ContiamoCI! and Coordinamento 15 Ottobre.

On the Bottom

As of 2020 and 2021, Italy ranked 41st in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled and published annually by the French non-governmental organisation Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders), among the lowest in Europe.

Alfred Freddy Krūppa, Censorship (Reductivism revisited), 2013. Courtesy of WikiArt.

The War of the Roses

Order, counter-order, disorder — COVID-19 is back! Rai 3’s investigative TV series, Report, continues its inquiry — by simply following the money — into the black holes of the mainstream narrative.

Hard Times

Italian journalist Sigfrido Ranucci, who hosts the investigative TV series Report on Rai 3, is continuing his inquiry into the Italian “Night of the Pencils”, when one night in March 2019 COVID-19 wiped out all forms of terrestrial life in the peninsula. Since then any semblance of democratic governance has been halted by a temporary “emergency state” which continues to this day, so as to confirm the saying that “Nothing is more permanent than the temporary”. Most of the media, for fear of losing the public funding that goes to the press, immediately echoed the official narrative, with as much obedience and rhetoric as the government needed to violently suppress all forms of intellectual dissent. It’s not merely a matter of who sits in the driver’s seat of a puppet governement, but a crucial showdown between mankind and its oppressors. Not surprisingly the fake prosperity of a war economy may involve both legal and illegal activities, which can make pharmaceutical corporations (and their local business agents) earn big profits by selling magic elixirs of life — side effects aside. To quote the Congressional Record of the U.S. Senate (February 11, 1929), “as long as somebody can sell what does not exist, he can control the market”.

All things come in threes

Italian journalist Sigfrido Ranucci, who hosts the investigative TV series Report on Rai 3, was roughly criticised and threatened with censorship by the government’s guard dogs of RAI’s Vigilance Commission for his reporting on the ethics of vaccination in Italy, tellingly titled “All things come in threes” (“Non c’è due senza tre”), in which both the validity of the so-called “health pass”, as well as the campaign for the third dose of vaccine, have been seriously questioned on the ground of its scientific reliability and its being only functional to the financial interests of Big Pharma.

Thoughts in Words

The poet who sees everything is accused of freedom of thought. Il poeta che vede tutto viene accusato di libertà di pensiero. Alda Merini

Robots learn from humans, and so they adopt humans’ biases. Photo: Alamy.

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known as Shawkan, mimes a photographer inside a soundproof glass dock during his trial in Cairo. Photo: AFP/Mohamed el-Shahed.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, makes a gesture mimicking taking a picture from inside a soundproof glass dock, during his trial in the capital Cairo. Photo: AFP/Khaled Desouki.

Power from the Sun

Electronic Frontier Foundation (@EFF)

隧道协议 (Tunneling protocol)

• Banjamin Haas, China moves to block internet VPNs from 2018, The Guardian, July 11, 2017

As I Walked Out One Evening

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (@Kasparov63)

State of the Union

London, United Kingdom: Julian Assange’s cat looks out of the window of Ecuadorian embassy as Swedish prosecutors question the Wikileaks founder inside. Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images.

The Salieri Syndrome

The Cultural Revolution had catastrophic consequences for musicians in China, where listening to Beethoven became a political crime. Fifty years on, how have attitudes changed? [Read more].

• Madeleine Thien, After the Cultural Revolution: what western classical music means in China, The Guardian, July 8, 2016

An outdoor recital, with 160 pianos playing in harmony, in 杭州 (Hángzhōu), China. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images.

King Kong Gun

• Tom Phillips and Ed Pilkington, No country for academics: Chinese crackdown forces intellectuals abroad, The Guardian, May 24, 2016

Activists, journalists, bloggers, feminists, labour campaigners, religious leaders and rights lawyers have been interrogated, harassed or even disappeared and jailed. Liberal academics have also come under increasing pressure. [Read more].

Artwork © berkozturk

I’d like to change posture

余少鐳 (Yú Shǎoléi), culture editor of Southern Metropolis Daily, says: “I’ve been kneeling so long I can’t bear it. I’d like to change posture” The editor of a Chinese newspaper has published a resignation letter denouncing increased controls on the media under Xí Jìnpíng, according to a cached version of his online post. Yú Shǎoléi, the culture editor of the Southern Metropolis Daily, posted a photo of his resignation letter on his Weibo social media account. [Read more].

• Agence France-Presse in Běijīng, Chinese journalist denounces Xí Jìnpíng in resignation letter, The Guardian, March 29, 2016

“This spring, let’s make a clean break. I’m getting old; after bowing for so long, I can’t stand it anymore. I want to see if I can adopt a new posture. To the person responsible for monitoring my Weibo and notifying his superiors about what I should be made to delete: you can heave a sigh of relief. Sorry for the stress I’ve caused you these last few years, and I sincerely hope your career can take a new direction. And to those friends who care about me, I won’t even say goodbye, Southern Media Group”. [Chinese].

A few words about how to survive censorship

Muhammad Ali
Photo © Bob Thomas, 1963

• 艾未未 (Ài Wèiwèi), China’s censorship can never defeat the internet, The Guardian, April 16, 2012 (English language)
• 艾未未 (Ài Wèiwèi), 中国政府的审查永远打败不了互联网, The Guardian, April 16, 2012 (Chinese language)

No-broadcast theorem

Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS)

圣诞礼物

Ursula Gauthier, from L’Obs magazine, was attacked in state media for article criticising Běijīng government’s approach to Muslim minority in Xīnjiāng China is expelling a French journalist who questioned its treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority in the north-western region of Xīnjiāng, her employer, the weekly L’Obs news magazine, has said. Ursula Gauthier, the magazine’s Běijīng correspondent, needs to leave China by 31 December after authorities refused to renew her visa. Shortly after publishing a story that suggested China was using the Paris Attacks to justify crackdowns on Uighur people, Gauthier was the subject of editorials in state-controlled media and even death threats, L’Obs said. [Read more].

• Reuters in Paris, China expels French journalist who questioned treatment of Uighurs, The Guardian, December 26, 2015
• Tom Phillips in Běijīng, French journalist accuses China of intimidating foreign press, The Guardian, December 26, 2015

Ursula Gauthier holds a statement criticising her from the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/AP.