"If you are not drunk, it avoids throwing yourself into the mouth of the wolf": a new sentence that is causing a stir in Italy, about a rape victim. And for good reason, it was pronounced live Monday on Rete 4 television (Mediaset group) by journalist Andrea Giambruno, who is none other than the companion of the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
While interviewing guests in his program "Diario del giorno", the 42-year-old man returned to facts of rape that occurred recently near Palermo and Naples. In the discussion with his guests, he ended up declaring: "If we go dancing, we have every right to be drunk, there must be no misunderstanding of any kind. But if you avoid getting drunk and losing your mind, maybe you also avoid incurring certain problems, because then you fall into the mouth of the wolf."
Per il compagno indecente di Giorgia #Meloni è la ragazzina che se l'è cercata perdendo i sensi: "Se non ti ubriachi, non ti stuprano" #Giambruno #stuproPalermo pic.twitter.com/KarZ7wVBVp
— ● T i v ● (@Darktiv) August 29, 2023
Feelings of guilt for victims
A sentence that did not take long to react in Italy, faced with the clear accusations against the victims who would be somehow "responsible" for the violence suffered, according to the statements of the journalist. The political class has largely rebelled, the 5-Star Movement has asked the Mediaset group to "distance itself" from the words of its journalist.
"We do not accept any form of ambiguity. Let Meloni distance himself from these remarks which insinuate once again that sometimes it is also the "fault" of women. This is unacceptable," Chiara Braga, head of the Democratic Party, Italy's main centre-left party, reacted on X (ex-Twitter).
His colleague Alessandro Zan, who actively campaigns for women's rights and LGBT+, also revolted by such a speech on the same social network. "Blaming victims of violence, especially live on television, is a barbaric and perverse practice that refers to the worst macho and patriarchal stereotypes," he said Tuesday at midday.
Prima di Caivano, ci si deve augurare che Meloni affronti la questione in casa propria, spiegando a #Giambruno che colpevolizzare le vittime di una violenza, tanto più in diretta tv, è una pratica barbara e perversa, che scaturisce dai peggiori stereotipi machisti e patriarcali.
— Alessandro Zan (@ZanAlessandro) August 29, 2023
Moreover, the facts mentioned by the journalist are particularly serious and make the headlines on the other side of the Alps. A 19-year-old woman accuses seven men of rape in Palermo. They would have first made him drink, before taking him away from the evening, details the RAI. She could no longer walk, as shown by surveillance cameras.
Once in a city park, the seven men (including a minor at the time) then raped the victim by filming the act with their phones. The police were able to seize the videos on the mobile phones of the accused, aged between 18 and 22, all of whom are now incarcerated. At the same time, a case of "sexual assault" on children aged 10 and 12 by two young adults near Naples arouses the same emotion, while Giorgia Meloni went there on Tuesday, notes RAI.
A regular of polemical phrases
The man reacted today in his show, broadcast at 15:30 p.m. "Since a completely surreal controversy has erupted in recent hours, (...) I must stress that no one here has justified the act, on the contrary."
However, this position is not the first to put Andrea Giambruno in the forefront of the media scene. He opened his television news last month by denying climate change as a heat wave hit Italy: "The heat is not big news, it has always been hot in the summer."
Less than a week later, he openly attacked the German Minister of Health who had evoked the high temperatures that affected the boot: "If it is too hot here, stay at home in the Black Forest," he said on air.