An “urgent” hearing of charges accusing the Orbis news agency and its editors of “exaltation of facism, anti-Semitism and racism,” was set for January 27 by the Florence Court today, at the request of this city’s prosecutor.
The prosecutor informed the court he had concluded an investigation into charges against Orbis and its editors, finding they had violated the Italian laws against racist advocacy of anti-Semitic persecutions. The laws were enacted by the Government since World War II.
The requests for legal action against Orbis were made here last week by the political division of the Florence police department and the Union of Jewish Communities of Italy. Orbis had published an article considered “violently anti-Semitic,” written by an ex-Nazi in Munich.
In a statement issued today, the editor of Orbis declared: “We are not racists and, particularly, we are not anti-Semites. Being Christians, we are, from a religious viewpoint, children of Israel.” He added that the offending article from Munich was published by Orbis “in perfect good faith as a simple piece of news.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
