VIENNA
International Press Institute
By: IPI Contributor Cagla Zimmerman and staff
VIENNA, Nov 27, 2015 – The International Press Institute (IPI) today called on Vatican City to drop criminal charges against two Italian journalists it accuses of publishing classified information in books that have cast the city-state and the Catholic hierarchy in a harsh light.
A Vatican judge earlier this week ruled that the case against Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose respective books Avarice and Merchants in the Temple alleged rife mismanagement and corruption in the Vatican, would go forward. The books’ claims are reportedly based in part on documents leaked to the journalists by Vatican insiders. A Spanish priest and two former members of a Vatican commission on economic reforms are facing charges in connection with the leak.
Fittipaldi and Nuzzi are said to be the first journalists in history to be put on trial in the Vatican. If convicted, they could face up to eight years in prison.
Both journalists have rejected the accusations against them and have insisted they were only doing their job. “This is a trial against freedom of the press”, Fittipaldi said in an interview with AP. “In no other part of the world, at least in the part of the world that considers itself democratic, is there a crime of a scoop, a crime of publishing news.”
IPI Director of Press Freedom Programmes Scott Griffen said the Vatican’s decision to prosecute Fittipaldi and Nuzzi demonstrated a lack of understanding about the role and rights of the media in modern society.
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