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: format, I was unable to obtain one single document in
: English on this subject from anywhere in the world for the
: period 09/01/2000 through 10/18.

The post by RogueButterfly is apparently based on this news item:

Child-porn controversy erupts in Italy

http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500263321-500407637-502477432-0,00.html

By CANDICE HUGHES, Associated Press

ROME (September 28, 2000 4:01 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Top Italian television executives resigned Thursday after state TV aired graphic images in a prime-time news report on child pornography. The broadcasts, seen by nearly 11 million people, shocked Italy and ignited a political controversy.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano criticized TV for worshipping a "cult" of sensational images and said the broadcasts had "violated Italian families" in the guise of news.

"The images transmitted last night were not just an offense to viewers, but most of all to the children represented - twice victims, twice exploited, twice violated when they should have been protected," it said.

An anchorman and two assistant news directors resigned Thursday, and two top news executives offered to follow suit.

The case hit the news a day earlier, when police said they had broken up an online international child pornography ring, arrested eight Italians and three Russians and seized thousands of videos and photographs.

The Russian-run ring, which distributed an explicit catalog on the Internet, catered to clients in the United States, Italy and Germany. Its inventory included films of children being tortured and killed.

State television's RAI Tre station showed some of the photos and graphic snippets of video during the 7 p.m. newscast Wednesday.

RAI Uno did the same an hour later, even though complaints had already started pouring in. By the end of the 30-minute broadcast, RAI Uno's news director, Gad Lerner, was on the air apologizing for images "not only unwatchable but violent."

Called on the carpet Thursday, Lerner and his RAI Tre counterpart Nino Rizzo Nervo both admitted they didn't know what was going to be on the broadcasts.

The uproar threatened to overshadow the horror over the pedophilia case itself.

Investigators say the pornography ring produces and distributes images showing children as young as 2 years old being sexually abused. Some of the victims were reportedly stolen from orphanages; others from families.

Its catalog offers films of killings for about $20,000 and images of people having sex with children for half that. Images of children being kidnapped are relatively cheap at less than $200.

RAI Uno's broadcast showed pages from the catalog and a video of a man apparently having sex with a little girl.

The attacks on RAI came from both the left and the right.

The communist newspaper Liberazione ran indignant letters from viewers on the front page. In parliament, the center-right opposition scolded RAI and demanded Lerner and Rizzo Nervo's resignations be accepted.

Never prudish, Italian TV has grown increasingly daring about sex and violence. The Italian version of "Big Brother," for example, routinely shows nudity and sex.

Aldo Grasso, one of Italy's most respected television critics, said the RAI broadcasts were "symptomatic of what has been happening in Italian TV, both state and private, over the last couple of years."

"Editors are driven not by quality or responsibility toward viewers but only the ratings," he told The Associated Press. "Disturbing and violent images intrude in all kinds of programs, throughout the day."

The UNICEF head in Italy, Giovanni Micali, also complained bitterly about rising violence. "It was an extreme case, but not the first and not the only one," he said of the RAI newscasts.

Top government officials promised action.

The justice minister said he was looking into how RAI got the material and the telecommunications minister said prosecutors were checking to see if RAI's broadcast had violated the law.

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http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500263321-500407637-502477432-0,00.html