Member of Parliament (Socialist Party) and member of the Radical Party

There is the risk of an irreversible decline of democracy, with a crisis for employment and freedom

ABSTRACT: A "shameful" press campaign provides completely deformed information on the seven o'clock meetings organized by Pannella (1). The participants of these meetings are forced to defend themselves while the "stupid opportunists" stir a scandal in order to cover their own responsibilities: the attacks are not aimed against "this" Parliament, but at Parliament in general, because the goal is obtaining "weak Parliaments". All this entails the irreversible risk of a decline of Italian democracy", but none of the papers, "servants of the old and new regime", ever told this.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 25 November 1993)

The question is: where do the people who insult the seven o'clock meetings receive their information? I consider these insults so unfair that I ask each one of the person who expressed them to tell me, honestly, what the subject of those meetings was. A shameful disinformation, in fact a deformation of the reality, depicted those meetings as useful to those who received notifications of investigation.

And we are forced to defend ourselves by explaining that a notice of investigation is not the equivalent of a condemnation, and that any persons' defense counsel should have the right to express itself in front of an unbiased judge--a right which is denied by an information that destroys people while failing to mention the criminal association of those same owners of the information. The stupid opportunists cry out today to cover their own responsibilities.

The attacks were not aimed against this Parliament in particular, but against Parliament in general. The intention is that of having weak and useless governments, governments that can be replaced, like three hundred years ago, before the birth of modern democracies. In fact, is not this the Parliament that abolished the authorization to proceed? Now everyone discovers the mistakes of the electoral laws adopted. Now everyone can see that there is the risk of an irreversible decline of the Italian democracy, with a crisis of employment and freedom. Defending other people's rights; fighting against a biased justice system; renewing the institutions of representative democracy; fighting against the totalitarian illusions that could re-emerge in Italy; these were among the topics of our meetings.

None of the papers, the servants of the old and new regime, told you this. Obviously they thought it was better to have brain-washed readers that informed readers.

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.