In the past weeks a small online videogame has been the center of much controversy in Italy, with center-right MPs explicitly asking governmental intervention in its removal, questioning once again the limits of freedom of expression in the country.

Everything started when Molleindustria, a group of "artists, designers and programmers that aims at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of videogames", developed and published on its website a small Flash-based videogame called "Operation Pedopriest". Molleindustria was already quite famous in Italian specialized circles for its Flash-based games on politically sensitive topics, including exploitation of workers and gender identity.

"Operation Pedopriest" was Molleindustria's provocative follow-up to the recent BBC documentary "Sex, crimes and the Vatican" and the hot debate that raged in the Italian political world when the documentary was broadcasted on the public TV network. Echoing the claims of the documentary, players of "Pedopriest" are in control of so-called "silencers", priests intimidating parents of abused children in order to avoid police intervention. Apparently, some MPs from the UDC party (Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e di Centro - Christian and Center Democrats Union, currently in the center-right opposition coalition) were not amused by the game.

On 26 June 2007 Luca Volontè, head of the UDC group in the lower chamber, issued an official request to the Ministers of Internal Affairs, of Cultural Goods and Activities and of Communications. In the request, Mr. Volontè lamented the existence and wide availability of a "flash game (...) whose goal is to attack the (Catholic) Church and Pope Benedetto XVI" and asked the Ministers "which urgent measures they plan to adopt in order to avoid that freedom of expression (...) become an alibi to offend human and religious sensitivity and which measures they plan to put in place in order to avoid (...) offences to (...) religious confessions in general and to the catholic religion in particular".

Of particular interest, the request by Mr. Volontè stressed the fact that the videogame depicted "simulations of rapes on children"; this, according to Mr. Volontè, violated Italian Law 38/2006 ("Measures related to the fight against sexual exploitation of children and pedopornography, including via the Internet") and specifically the prohibition of obtaining or trafficking with "virtual images" of child pornography.

Notwithstanding the fact that, as many commentators argued, Law 38/2006 defines "virtual images" as "images made using techniques of graphical elaboration ... whose quality makes unreal situations look real" (which was obviosuly not the case of "Operation Pedopriest", a very stylized, lo-res game) the statement by the Minister of Internal Affairs that the website of Molleindustria was already "under examination" and that "judicial authority" had been informed was enough for Molleindustria to take action.

On 1 July, Molleindustria announced the removal of "Operation Pedopriest" from the website, "in order to not worsen the situation of our webspace provider that is legally responsable for all the content". As could be expected, shortly after its removal the game started to be mirrored and copied all around the Internet, in Italy and abroad. What had probably not been expected was that on 2 July, the lucavolonte.eu domain name was registered by a member of the art group "Les Liens invisibiles" and used for a parody of Mr. Volontè official website - an almost exact copy, but with the game "Operation Pedopriest" shown in good evidence.

This prompted a reaction that took the form of a precautionary seizure of the website by the Postal Police of Frosinone (Rome) on 9 July. According to a communiqué by Les Liens invisibles, the seizure was based on violation of art. 494 ("Replacement of person") and art. 593(3) ("Defamation through the press") of the Italian Criminal Code. The content on lucavolonte.eu was replaced with a dry notice of seizure.

However, the saga was not (and is not) finished. On the same day of the seizure, the domain name "luca-volonte.com" was registered and used for the same parody of Mr. Volonté website; this time, however, a US hosting provider was chosen. According to some non-verified inside sources, the Italian prosecutor of the case is considering whether to issue an international request to US authorities.

If the "Operation Pedopriest" case might seem solved, the larger problem of how much freeedom of expression Italian citizens can expect to be granted remains, especially in light of the Government's worrying theories on the harsh limits that art. 21 - the article of the Italian Constitution defending freedom of expression - should meet when confronted with "religious sensitivity".

The web site of Molleindustria
http://www.molleindustria.org/home-eng.php

Sex, crimes and the Vatican (29.09.2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Official website of Luca Volontè
http://www.luca-volonte.it/

Luca Volontè request (in Italian only, 26.06.2007)
http://banchedati.camera.it/sindacatoispettivo_15/showXhtml.Asp?idAtto...

Official response to Luca Volontè's request (in Italian only, 28.06.2007)
http://www.camera.it/_dati/leg15/lavori/stenografici/sed179/s140.htm#S...

Law 38/2006 (in Italian only, 6.02.2007)
http://www.giustizia.it/cassazione/leggi/l38_06.html

First parody of Mr. Volontè website (now seized)
http://www.lucavolonte.eu/

Linking the Invisible (in Italian only, 10.07.2007)
http://www.lesliensinvisibles.org/volonte_vs_molleindustria/

Second parody of Mr. Volontè website
http://www.luca-volonte.com/

(Contribution by Andrea Glorioso, consultant on digital policies - Italy)