Italian Insider legal defense fund

Italian Insider Chief Editor John Phillips is appealing for donations to help pay legal costs in press freedom battles at the Rome Tribunal court against Bocconi University lecturer Vincenzo Morabito and the FAO to prevent the UN agency silencing the English-language newspaper's unique reporting on corruption and mismanagement.

Phillips was ordered to pay some 90,000 euros after he was convicted in the defamation case brought against him by the FAO Director General, José Graziano da Silva, for allegedly tarnishing the image of the FAO through the newspaper's investigative reporting. Morabito is demanding 130,000 euro in civil damages for an article that the Insider picked up from a report in Il Fatto Quotidiano about his alleged links to organised crime.

 The Insider is appealing for readers and well wishers to donate, anonymously if they wish, to help the Insider cover legal and legal translation costs of thousands of euros. 

 The attacks on the newspaper by the FAO threatens to drive the Insider out of business and set a dangerous precedent in preventing reporting on wrongdoing within the United Nations and Italy.