ABSTRACT: With his letter of resignation from the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Marco Pannella opened the campaign for the right to information in the West. With an article in the daily newspaper, "Il Giornale d'Italia", Marco Pannells explained the Fascist involution in progress in some of the "Real Democracies". For the first time in Eastern Europe, there have been demonstrations calling for the respect of political rights in the so-called democratic West. The arrest of Radical activists in Moscow, their trial and sentencing. The hunger strike of Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto.

The acceptance by the Italian Chamber of Deputies of Marco Pannella's resignation, despite all the protests against it.

OCTOBER 6, 1989

PANNELLA'S RESIGNATION: THE TEXT OF THE LETTER SENT YESTERDAY TO PRESIDENT NILDE IOTTI.

Rome, October 6--N.R.--This is the text of the letter of resignation of Deputy Marco Pannella, sent yesterday to the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Nilde Iotti.

Madame President,

That tendencies, reflections, and institutional and social violence of an unequivocally Fascist character predominate everywhere to me is tragically clear.

If execution squads with their victims and assassins are lacking, or appear to be, it is only because the assassinations of the image, of truth, of tolerance of ideas, of laws themselves and basic morality and the Constitution, are committed continuously, completely, in a more thorough and more radical manner by the mass media (in particular, RAI-TV, the gangster-like and Fascist action squad-like comportment of which, is however no longer exclusive to RAI 1, but even more pronounced in the "Socialist" RAI 2 and in its "Presidential" management, but also the tendencies, converging on those of the TV, of the press, expression of the major industrial groups and Italian and multinational powers), with the denigration of Parliament, the tendency to lynch anyone disagreeing with the leader of the PSI (Italian Socialist Party) or its "protectors" or "allies" in the DC (Christian Democrat Party), which was amply illustrated by the vote on the "secret ballot" and recently by the silence of the Present of the S

enate, as regards the law on drugs.

The Monitoring Commission of RAI-TV is directly involving Parliament in a piratical and hypocritical undertaking of complicity in omission in this subversive context, betraying the Constitution, negating the law, the legality, and the legitimacy of political debate or opposition.

On this, no true debate in the Chamber exists, in concert with the political Party-system which is of a Fascist character and which is closing in upon and working against the ideals and strength of democratic legality.

For these reasons, I have offered my resignation as Deputy. What is happening as regards the Roman elections would no longer be tolerated in Eastern Europe, not even in the USSR, where Eltsin would not even be recognized as candidate, if he had participated in the Italian elections. I refuse to have any part of it.

October 19, 1989

THE MANEUVERS OF THE ITALIAN TELEVISION AND RADIO SYSTEM--ATTACK ON THE CONSTITUTION--AN ARTICLE BY MARCO PANNELLA PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSPAPER, "IL GIORNALE D'ITALIA".

It is time to raise the question, by now dramatic, of democratic rights, of the legality and legitimacy of certain regimes of "Real Democracy", which with Party System, are progressively less democratic and progressively more fascist.

This is the issue which the Radical Party (transnational and trans-party) and all its activists will be concerned with from now on. It is time for the democratic activists of Hungary and the Soviet Union, for example, to defend the civil and human rights also of Italian citizens, of the minorities oppressed here, increasingly without a voice, without an image, without a position of equality, or even an acceptable degree of discrimination, in the context of a "democratic" game sequestered by oligarchical, political or economic groups.

What is happening in Italy, as regards television and radio information, and for the most part the press, constitutes a real attack on the Constitution and the civil and constitutional rights of the citizen.

This attack, this subversive action against republican institutions, is an open, excessive, arrogant violation of the codes, and supreme law. And it is not by chance that the Italian Magistrate has been for decades, in all its components, the ferocious and loyal watch dog for this Fascist involution of the party system. If the Constitutional Court can affirm that there no longer exists in Italy any guarantee of right; if the Socialist Party can move, as it does, with even more arrogance than the Christian Democrats every did, as a real subversive association; if the PSI (Socialists) use power, excessive power, in syntony with the recovery of its traditional democratic insensibility, which led to its meriting the Stalin prize for iniquity in the most infamous period of Stalinism, and within which Fascism in Europe was nurtured; if the laic and liberal parties can confirm their position of stupid and blind acceptation and instigation (in their "instrumental" intentions) of the Fascistic use of power and

the institutions, as the majority of their forerunners did in the affirmation of Fascism; if the PCI (Italian Communist Party) can denounce a part of these facts, but weakly, and in clear deference to the priority it gives to a political line-up policy, despite the hurried and purely academic denials of the past weeks; no one--or practically no one--has raised the question of the DSM, and in particular its President, as unacceptable to Constitutional and institutional legality, run as it is by jurists and politicians who were and are still of a emergenzialist conviction; that is, Jacobin, antidemocratic and anti-juridical. If the elections are progressively more falsified and rendered undemocratic by the increasingly violent removal of the right and duty of the citizen to be informed to choose, if recently as regards the antiprohibitionist position of the PSI, the Secretary of the DC, the Minister of the Interior, and often even the President of the Council, have behaved like vulgar hawkers of intolerance

and discrimination, with RAI-TV unleashed to ostracize all those--Catholics and laics, treatment centers and Radical Party, magistrates and physicians, politicians and members of Parliament (abetted by the silence/absence of the President of the Senate)--who work in syntony with their consciences and their mandate, if all this occurs, we can no longer limit ourselves to lamentation and protestation, not adapt ourselves to this "trahison des clercs"--in the opposite sense to the one denounced by Julien Benda in the 1930s--but equally scandalous and painful--if we are not once more to take the road to dishonour and death taken by a great number of the intellectuals and politicians of the 1920s and 30s, then anyone today possessing that sense of responsibility which led to only slightly more than a dozen senators to vote against the cleric-fascist Concordat in 1929, or those university professors--in 1933--to refuse to swear loyalty to the Fascist regime, to act with the responsibility and conviction of the "Do

n't Give In" activists, of Carlo and Nello Rosselli, Terracini and Spinelli, of Ernesto Rossi and Ignazio Silone, as their heirs must assume the responsibility and develop the capacity to act with justice and propriety also on the institutional level.

The time has come to return, en masse, to the practice of non-violence and dialogue, to the unity of believers in the different faiths, of institutional or laic religiosity, as existed during the Risorgimento, up to the Gentiloni-Giolitti pacts, antechamber of the Gasparri-Mussolini pacts.

But all this is possible only if it is conceived and accepted as a response (both Italian and institutional) to, as well in conjuncture with, the increasingly serious situation of the suffocation of democracy in the "Real Democratic" regimes--in Italy, for example, and many others, both European and non-European.

The alternative of the Left, which continues to be applied, is inside, completely within the undemocratic and party system breakdown, and in Rome no more and nor less than in the rest of Italy. The rejection of the proposal of a Nathan ticket, in the slovenliness and misery in which it was made; the penalization of one component of the DC, and the de facto absolution of the real guilty parties (beginning with Liberals, Republicans, Social-democrats and "Socialist" masters) for the Roman debacle, the proposal of worse party platforms, all of them older than traditional ones (with the exception of the Ecologists, the DP and the Antiprohibitionists), the squalor of laic protests and the arguments of silence which are theirs, the PCI's rejection even of an Ingrao ticket, an alliance of democrats, laic, intellectuals and Radicals, on the basis of a "Project 2000", constitute ample justification for the fearful deduction of a total absence of elementary republican legal guarantees. The President of the Repu

blic pretends to see or hear or know no evil, which, although always better than explicit consent or emergenzialist justification, is still, however, very much below the constitutional or civil minimum necessary. Giovanni Negri, in recent weeks, announced the passage to the panoply of non-violent means to prevent, in the context of the Roman elections, any further aberrant lowering of the levels of legality and civility in political debate. I fear that he was right; we must stop deceiving ourselves if we are to prevent further delay. Otherwise, once more, a "return to democracy", will use assassination--also physical--in the wake of the current political, moral, juridic assassinations. I can already hear the chorus of self-satisfied anathema ("The usual, meaningless outbursts..." being raised everywhere; the "best" wishing the worst to the worst.

I might suggest to those individuals to read, or re-read, the splendid, dramatic and frightening book of Jader Jacobelli on the "Croce-Gentile" correspondence, with the Pilate-like and hypocritical framework within which it was impossible to resist adhering to the very resistible rise of Mussolini, his face illuminated by the irresistible descent into hell and infamy of so many of his "enemies".

October 20, 1989

LEGALITY, INFORMATION: DEMONSTRATION OF CITIZENS OF EASTERN EUROPE BEFORE THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH EMBASSIES IN MOSCOW, WARSAW, BUDAPEST AND PRAGUE: "PERESTROIKA AND DEMOCRATIC LEGALITY, URGENT NOT ONLY IN THE REAL SOCIALIST COUNTRIES".

A LETTER DELIVERED TO THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH AMBASSADORS.

DEMONSTRATIONS ALSO IN MADRID BEFORE SPANISH NATIONAL TELEVISION.

Rome, October 20--N.R.--Before the Italian and Spanish embassies in Moscow, Warsaw, Budapest and Prague, citizens of those countries along with Transnational Radical Party activists demonstrated for democracy in the Western countries, delivering a letter to the Italian and Spanish ambassadors denouncing "the growing threat in the world in this era of the mass media of a "fourth estate" the strength of which appears at times disproportionately superior to traditional powers themselves, to the degree that the dividing line between free information in the democratic countries and that in the totalitarian regimes is increasingly less apparent". Some Radical activists in the Eastern European countries decided to adhere to the hunger strikes of Spanish and Italian Radicals, in order to express their solidarity with those in the West who are protesting against a democracy which is increasingly less democratic and increasingly more "Real Democracy".

In Budapest, at 11:00 A.M., demonstrating together with activists and sympathizers of the Transnational Radical Party were Federal Councilors Ferenc Parcz (Hungarian), Massimo Lensi (Italian) and Vito Cezmadiski (Croat).

In Madrid, at 1:00 P.M., a few dozen people--including Police Inspector Jose' Manuel Sanchez Garcia and journalist Vitoria Sendon, head of the "Lista Antiprohibicionista sobre Droga--Grupo de Radicales en Madrid" which participated in the Spanish elections of October 29--demonstrated before the main entrance of the "Torrespana" building of the RTVE (Spanish Radio Television). Also present, among the founders of the International Antiprohibitionist League, were Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, Marco Taradash and Anthony Henmann (Brazil).

FOLLOWING IS THE TEXT OF THE LETTER DELIVERED TO THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH AMBASSADORS IN MOSCOW, BUDAPEST, PRAGUE AND WARSAW.

We are activists of the Radical Party, activists for democracy and freedom of thought and opinion, human and civil rights. We are, above all, non-violent activists who are daily proof of their commitment to the proposition that, here and now, in our society principles and valued shall be affirmed which will otherwise be condemned to remain a dead letter, too often hypocritically paid homage to in order to be better repudiated and oppressed. In the countries of "Real Socialism", of crisis and ruin, many of us continue to pay a heavy personal price for this commitment, surrounded and forced back into a wall of silence and repression. But we also know that margination, censorship, regimentation and the denial of the right to identity and image, are phenomena not exclusive to the Real Socialist countries. With these arms and through the mass media, political adversaries, troublesome individuals and minorities are repressed, also in the West--which declares itself to be free and democratic--sacrificing t

o vested interests the collective good, which is free and complete information, the possibility to communicate and be informed of ideas and opportunity, which is the very foundation of democracy. Today, some of our colleagues began a non-violent hunger strike protest in Italy and Spain against the suffocation of information, democracy, and equal rights for all, also in the context of elections being held in those countries. Included among them are those, like Marco Pannella, who have struggled exclusively with the weapons of non-violence and tolerance, for our freedom and our rights. But is not only in the name of solidarity or recognition of brotherhood that we have today decided to demonstrate in various capitals of Eastern Europe, utilizing the non-violent action of hunger strike, so much as to affirm the justice of and the willingness to fight a common struggle. In our world and our era of mass media, characterized by a "fourth estate" the strength of which appears at times disproportionately superio

r to that of the traditional powers themselves, the dividing line between free information in the democratic countries and authoritarian information in the totalitarian regimes becomes progressively less clear. In the West as well as in the East, the rigid control of information is practiced and recognized as a decisive concentration of power and conditioning. But in the world and era of mass media, there is no greater blow to democracy than the suppression of voices, ideas, minorities: "Real Socialism" and "Real Democracy" tend to profess the same logic of exclusion of violence, in the full knowledge that the control of mass communications has by now rendered superfluous the preceding, proven methods of liquidating the opposition. Thus, we have today decided to demonstrate. And the fact that after years of non-violent protest, silence and repression in the East, there is today in the West progressively more, encourages to share our convictions; and we also state that that non-violent struggle is a commo

n one and shared for a true political democracy, free information, laws and rights equal for all--in the East as well as in Italy and Spain--countries of "Real Democracies" and a regimented and repressive "fourth estate". Thus, did we decide to demonstrate before the Italian and Spanish embassies, to participate today emblematically in their non-violent action and their fasting.

October 20, 1989

LEGALITY OF INFORMATION: THE FIRST DAY OF THE HUNGER STRIKE OF MARCO PANNELLA, GIOVANNI NEGRI AND LUIGI DEL GATTO FOR LEGALITY AND FREE INFORMATION. EIGHT ARE HUNGER-STRIKING IN SPAIN, INCLUDING MANUEL SANCHEZ GARCIA AND VICTORIA SENDON, HEAD OF THE ANTIPROHIBITIONIST PARTICIPATING IN THE ELECTIONS.

Rome--Madrid, October 20--N.R.--The first day of the hunger strike of Marco Pannella, GIovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto, who conducted their non-violent action for the restoration of democracy, legality and freedom of information. With their hunger strike, which began at midnight, they also demanded that the Magistrature take the steps necessary to end the violation of political and civil rights of citizens and guarantee non-unilateral information.

In Spain, eight persons, belonging to the "Lista Antiprohibicionista sobre Droga--Grupo de Radicales en Madrid" began a hunger strike at the same time to "call attention to the outrage perpetrated by the mass media on the identity and imagine of political opposition". Included were police inspector Jose' Manuel Sanchez Garcia and journalist Victoria Sendon, head of the that party's list in the elections at the end of October; Yolanda Alba, journalist; Nino Olmeda, journalist; Consuelo Ruiz-Jarabo, pharmacist; Joaquin Arce Neteos, economist; Pedro Gonzales Zerolo, lawyer; Juan Vasquez Arango, lawyer and leader of PAD.

October 20, 1989

MOSCOW: 7 SOVIET RADICALS ARRESTED FOR DEMONSTRATING BEFORE THE EMBASSY FOR THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED ALSO IN THE "REAL" DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES.

By our correspondent Marino Busdachin of the RP Secretariat who, together with the Moscow Radicals, took part in and organized the two "unusual" demonstrations.

Time: 3:00 P.M. Ulica Vesnina. From the balcony of a run-down building in Arbatskaja the Italian Embassy's flag flies. In front, circulating among KGB agents and television cameras, a few journalists and cameramen await the event. A few minutes pass and the wind fills out the banners which Evgenya, Sasha, Dmitry, Artyom, Lena and the others are holding fast, and high, so that they can be seen by all. "For Correct Information, also in the West" and "Spain and Italy: No to the Manipulation of Information", the symbol of GANDHI and other slogans printed during the previous night are photographed by cameramen and photographers. Nickolaij Kramov asks to be received by Ambassador Salleo--who is not available, and who instead through the locked gates inside of which are Italian military police, sends out the Italian Consul Colombo with whom Salleo exchanges a few words and consigns the letter of protest. The Consul receives it with thanks, and assures him that he will see to it that it reaches Salleo.

Among the flashes of the photographers' cameras and questions by journalists, ten minutes pass, closely controlled by the KGB. Then the banners are folded up again and the demonstration moves on to the Spanish Embassy.

The Italian journalists present in Moscow, who had been personally informed, were not present, despite their promises to cover the demonstration.

Nothing happened. It was as if the demonstration had been held in Rome, or not at all. The Radical activists can hardly believe it, but say that things will be different at the Spanish Embassy.

Gorbaciov is coming to Italy in November and doesn't want any "SKANDALS".

Ulica Gercena. 4:00 P.M.. The atmosphere is different. Upon arriving, we see the buses of Special Services in combat dress. In front of the gate groups of militiamen and KGB agents in plain clothes are grouped, ready to intervene. In fact, after barely two minutes have passed, and the banners just unfurled, the men in gray intervene.

One after another, Evgenja Debrjanskaja, Alexsander Pronozin, Lena Tjapkina, Dmitrj Ruvinskj, Stanislav Tomenko, Artjom Badenkov are taken away and put into one of the buses. In the meantime, Kramov is at the entrance explaining the reasons for the demonstration to two embassy employees and delivers the letter addressed to the ambassador--who, predictably, is nowhere in sight. A few minutes later, Kramov is also arrested. The special services drag him down the stairs and push him into the bus. I attempt to accompany him, but am prevented from doing so. I am a foreigner and the rules this time allow for exception...I follow them a bit and then attempt to find out where they have been taken.

A few hours later, I learn where the militia station is where they are being held. I attempt to go there, but do not succeed. I also learn that they will be tried at 9:00 A.M. by the District Court of Kreasnopresnenskj.

After a night spent in jail, the trial is held: for Evgenja, there is a fine of 1,000 roubles; the others fined range from 150 to 350 roubles--which is from one to six months' salary and obviously practically impossible to pay. Radical Radio in Italy requests all its listeners to commit themselves, also with contributions, to support the actions in the Soviet Union.

October 21, 1989

LEGALITY--INFORMATION: ARRESTS AND TRIALS FOR THE RADICALS OF THE EASTERN COUNTRIES WHO DEMONSTRATED FOR THE RETURN OF DEMOCRACY IN ITALY. IN MOSCOW, TRIED AND RELEASED TODAY, PHYSICALLY MISTREATED IN PRAGUE AND THEN RELEASED. DEMONSTRATIONS WITHOUT INCIDENT IN BUDAPEST AND WARSAW.

Budapest, October 21--N.R.--Arrest yesterday in Moscow and trial this morning of Soviet Radical activists demonstrating for a return to democracy and full freedom of information in Italy, Spain and the other Western countries. The demonstration before the Italian Embassy was concluded without incident; detention occurred during the demonstration at the Spanish Embassy. Those arrested--all members of the Radical Party--included Dimitri Ruvinski, Stanislav Tomienko, Stanislav Pronosim, Nikolai Chramov, Arpion Babienkov, Eughenia Debranskaya and Tyarkina Lena. They were tried that same morning. According to information received by telephone from Cramov, by Reuter correspondents in Moscow and Radical News in Brussels, of the seven tried, six were released, and one minor was detained for administrative purposes. Debranskay, member of the RP Federal Council, was sentenced to pay 1,000 roubles; the other fines varied from 300 to 50 roubles.

In Prague, around twenty Czechoslovaks, many of whom were members of the RP, after having demonstrated before the Italian Embassy, were detained by agents in front of the Spanish Embassy. Three RP activists, Jiri Machacek, John Bok, and Alexander Blasek, were violently pushed into a car and taken off to the police station. Olivier Dupuis, RP Federal Secretary witnessed the arrests. Those arrested were released this morning.

Present at the BUDAPEST demonstration were, among others, members of the Federal Council, Ferenc Parcz (Hungarian), Massimo Lensi (Italian) and Vito Cezmadiski (Croat).

Present in Warsaw were a few dozen persons, including Anna Niedzwiescka and Marek Krukowski, members of the RP Federal Council, Sandro Ottoni RP Federal Secretary.

In Madrid, the demonstrators included police inspector Jose' Manuel Sanchez Garcia and journalist Vitoria Sendon, head of the "Lista Antiprohibicionista sobre Droga" in the Spanish elections of October 29. The appointment was in front of the main entrance of the "Torrespana" building of RTVE (Spanish Radio Television). Also present--among the founders of the International Antiprohibitionist League--were Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, Marco Taradash and Anthony Henmann (Brazilian).

October 25, 1989

INFORMATION--REAL DEMOCRACY: ITALIAN AMBASSADOR RECEIVES CZECHOSLOVAK RADICAL EXPONENTS FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF: BOK AND BLAZIK REPEAT THE REASONS FOR THE DEMONSTRATIONS OF OCTOBER 20-- RESPECT OF DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES IN ROMAN AND SPANISH ELECTIONS.

Prague, October 25--N.R.--The Italian Ambassador to Prague, Giovanni Castellani Pastoris, received for a long visit two Czechoslovak Radicals, John Bok and Alexander Blazik. It will be remembered that last October 20, Prague was one of the Central and Eastern European capitals in which Radical activists and citizens demonstrated before the Spanish and Italian embassies against the violation of political and civil rights and the elements of illegality today in the media in Italy and Spain. The demonstration before the Italian Embassy and the delivery of the letter by demonstrators was not prevented; however, at the Spanish Embassy the police arrested a few Radicals--among whom were Bok and Blazik--thus preventing the delivery of the letter.

It was Castellani Pastoris who had invited the Radicals to attend the meeting and "he was very cordial", as the two Radicals reported. "We repeated to the Italian Ambassador the reasons and for the demonstration--as citizens of a non-democratic country, of Real Socialism--in support of democratic principles, while in Italy and Spain elections were being held. The Ambassador, very courteous and attentive, at that time even offered his support for our actions".

Bok and Blazik have announced that they will immediately send a letter to the Spanish Ambassador to Prague requesting a meeting.

October 25, 1989

DEBATE IN THE ITALIAN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES ON THE RESIGNATION OF MARCO PANNELLA--SURPRISE VOTE: 222 IN FAVOUR, 160 AGAINST.

During the debate on the resignation of Marco Pannella held on October 25, 2989 in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the Radical leader, recalling penal code norms sanctioning the violation of civil and political rights of the citizen, denounced the comportment of the Magistrature which has never persecuted that distortion of constitutional law practiced by the media which has essentially deprived the citizen of his right "to be informed in order to judge".

This state of affairs is the prelude to the advent of a new regime founded on the repression of written law.

Christian Democrat Deputy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, many times minister, had declared: "Remain here, it would give us the pleasure of judging you right or wrong".

Communist Deputy, Luciano Violante, stated that Marco Pannella "is one of the most active defenders of political and civil democratic values".

Then, the surprise vote (by secret ballot) on his resignation--222 deputies in favour, 160 against and 2 abstentions.

October 26, 1989

LEGALITY AND INFORMATION: SEVENTH DAY OF THE HUNGER STRIKE BY PANNELLA, NEGRI AND DEL GATTO IN FAVOUR OF LEGALITY AND INFORMATION. IN SPAIN, EIGHT CONDUCT HUNGER STRIKES.

Rome--Madrid, October 26--N.R.--The seventh day of the hunger strike by Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and the Secretary of the Radical Antiprohibitionist Coordination, Luigi Del Gatto, in a non-violent action in favour of the reconstitution of full democratic procedure, legality and information. They also requested that the Magistrature take the necessary steps to end the violation of the political and civil rights of citizens and guarantee non-unilateral information. In Spain, eight candidates on the "Lista Antipohibicionista sobre Droga--Grupo de Radicales en Madrid" at the same time began a hunger strike to "bring attention to the outrages perpetrated by the mass media on the identity and image of political opposition". Included were police inspector Jose' Manuel Sanchez Garcia and journalist Victoria Sendon, head of the list in the elections at the end of October, Yolanda Alba, Joaquin Arce Meteos, economist, Pedro Gonzales Zewrolom, lawyer, Juan Vasquez Arango, lawyer and PAD leader.

October 26, 1989

PANNELLA RESIGNS: YESTERDAY'S VOTE ILLUSTRATES THE EXISTENCE OF A TRANSVERSAL, CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT AND SOCIALIST PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY, WILLING TO COVER ILLEGALITY AND DEGENERATION OF THE MEDIA'S ROLE. STATEMENT BY SPADACCIA.

Rome--October--N.R.--Senator Gianfranco Spadaccia, Federalist Ecologist Group, stated:

"Yesterday's vote by the Chamber on Marco Pannella's resignation demonstrates that there exists by now a Parliamentary majority willing to cover the illegality and degeneration of the information services. This constitutes the most serious anti-democratic manifestation. That that majority--for the most part Christian Democrat and Socialist--found it necessary to form in the shadows is an even more significant and disturbing fact. Their intention, in fact, is not declared; the message is in any case sufficiently clear. The meaning of that vote is that the new transversal group which is today dominant in the party system intends to continue on that road of arrogance and illegality, saving themselves even the bother of denunciations by Pannella and the Radicals. Equally clear and preoccupying was the final statement of the President of the Chamber, who provided the most frank and for that reason the most dramatic expression of the impotence of the Parliamentary institution before the breakdown of de

mocracy.

Thus, we must prepare ourselves for a struggle for democracy and freedom of information outside Parliament and the country, if we are to prevent Parliamentary opposition from being reduced to the useless role of witness. But we can achieve this successfully only if the many who have up until now regarded the present situation with detachment and indifference abandon their inertia.