The independence of the country's media is threatened, uniquely in Europe, by the fact that the prime minister, Sylvio Berlusconi, owns the three main privately-owned TV stations, through the broadcasting company Mediaset, and indirectly controls the three RAI state-owned TV stations. Six journalists were threatened in 2005 after they investigated corruption in the Genoa football team. The right to privacy of journalistic sources, guaranteed in article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, was once more violated by a search of the offices of the daily paper Corriere della Sera in May.

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