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Protesters gather in Rome's Piazza del Popolo to demonstrate against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi February 13, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi
By Catherine Hornby
ROME | Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:40am EST
ROME (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of women rallied in Rome and other cities on Sunday, incensed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal which they say has disgraced Italy.
"Women are offended. The image of our country that Berlusconi is presenting to the world is just unbearable," said 52-year-old Roberta Nicchiarelli, attending a rally in Rome.
The protests in more than 200 towns in Italy and even some cities abroad reflect growing anger among women at the prostitution scandal that has engulfed the premier, who has long counted conservative women among his key voters.
"I voted for him in the past, but I am really disappointed. I hope things will change," said former Berlusconi voter Pina. Prosecutors filed a request on Wednesday to bring Berlusconi to trial, accusing him of paying for sex with a nightclub dancer when she was under 18, which is illegal in Italy.
The 74-year old premier has dismissed the accusations as "disgusting and disgraceful." Leaked wiretaps from the investigation have been splashed over newspapers for weeks with references to bundles of cash, talk of sex games and gifts that would-be starlets received after attending parties at Berlusconi's villa.
"I love my boyfriend for free," read one banner in Rome, where crowds of women of all ages packed into a central square flanked by husbands, brothers and male friends.
"It's a scandal. I do not believe in his values, his behavior and the way he treats women. Italy doesn't have a future if these are the values that sustain us," said Paolo Campedel, a worker attending a rally in Padua in northern Italy.
ONE-SIDED
Photos and videos of a growing list of young women from the fringes of show business alleged to be connected to Berlusconi have been plastered over Italian television and media web sites, often showing them in erotic poses or in their underwear.
Campaigners say the increasingly one-sided image of women as sex objects has promoted a culture in which women see selling their good looks as the only route to success in a country where a third of young people are unemployed.
"Big boobs, small hips, and always available: it's almost become a dictatorship because television, the newspapers, only present this model of women," said Lorella Zanardo, author of Il Corpo Delle Donne, a book about the image of women in the media.
The scandal in mainly Catholic Italy has revived opposition calls for Berlusconi to resign at a time when he is clinging to power after a split in the ruling PDL party last year.
But he has survived sex scandals in the past and some of his most staunch supporters attended pro-Berlusconi rallies earlier in the week, while branding Sunday's demonstration a puritanical and politically motivated ploy. The women's protest follows several anti-Berlusconi rallies this week.
President Giorgio Napolitano has warned political tensions are too high and told Berlusconi at a meeting on Friday that Italy risked facing new elections as a result.
(Additional reporting by Philip Pullella, Giselda Vagnoni, Cristiano Corvino in Rome, and Martin de Sa' Pinto in Padua Editing by Maria Golovnina)
Protesters gather in Rome's Piazza del Popolo to demonstrate against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi February 13, 2011. Berlusconi said on Monday he had no intention of stepping down and dismissed a weekend demonstration by thousands of women across Italy over his involvement in a sex scandal. Credit: Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi
ROME | Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:33pm IST
ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday he had no intention of stepping down and dismissed a weekend demonstration by thousands of women across Italy over his involvement in a sex scandal.
Hundreds of thousands of women took part in rallies on Sunday to defend their dignity and protest over the underage prostitution scandal that has rocked the 74 year-old prime minister's centre-right government.
The billionaire media entrepreneur told his Canale 5 network the protests were the work of his political opponents and denied that he disrespects women.
"I saw the usual factional forces mobilised against me by a certain section of the left which uses any pretext to beat an adversary whom they can't manage to beat at the polls," he told a morning programme.
"All women who have had the opportunity to get to know me, know how much I respect them. I have always behaved and I always behave with great care and great respect, both in my companies and in my government."
"I have always tried to act in such a way that every woman feels special," he said. Sunday's protests included several leading figures from the opposition centre-left and many conservative middle-aged women, a group which has traditionally supported him.
Berlusconi said the government would not resign over the affair, potentially opening the way for new elections. "There is a lot of confusion but I have very clear ideas. The interest of the country is to have a stable government which carries on with its programme with determination," he said.
Milan prosecutors have requested that Berlusconi face trial over accusations that he paid for sex with a girl below the age of 18 -- an offence in Italy -- and that he improperly pressured police to release her from custody over theft allegations.
A decision on whether to accept the request is expected early this week.
Using material obtained from investigators' wiretaps, newspapers have splashed lurid accounts of "bunga bunga" sex parties involving dozens of young women at Berlusconi's private villa near Milan.
Berlusconi has never hidden his fondness for the company of young women but denies doing anything illegal and his lawyers have produced witness statements saying that the events at his villa were no more than convivial dinner parties.
"The Milan prosecutors' office and the media in contrast has trampled on the dignity of my guests, exposing them to public scorn without any reason or regard for them and trampling on the truth," Berlusconi said. "It's really a disgrace, a big disgrace."
(Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
This combo image made of two recent file pictures shows Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (L) at Villa Madama in Rome and Moroccan Karima El Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby the Heartstealer in a nightclub. Italian prosecutors on February 15, 2011 requested that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi be put on trial immediately for abuse of power and having sex with an underage girl nicknamed Ruby the Heartstealer.
Nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug of Morocco poses during a photocall at the Karma disco in Milan, in this November 14, 2010 file photo. An Italian judge ordered Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on February 15, 2011, on charges that include paying el Mahroug, whose stage name is Ruby, for sex. Prosecutors say they have ample evidence that Berlusconi paid el Mahroug for sex when she was 17 years old -- an offence in Italy. She denies having sex with Berlusconi.
Activists from the women's rights organization "Femen" shout slogans and wave placards during a protest against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in front of Italy's embassy in Kiev February 14, 2011
Activists of Ukrainian womens' movement FEMEN shout during their protest action 'Italia is not bordello' in front of the Italian embassy in Kiev on February 14, 2011. The young Ukrainians support thousands of Italian women in their protests at 'degrading' media coverage of the recent sex scandals surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Activists of Ukrainian womens' movement FEMEN gesture from a police van on February 14, 2011 after being arrested during a protest, called 'Italiy is not a brothel,' in front of the Italian Embassy in Kiev. The Ukrainian femenists came to show their support for the hundreds of thousand of Italian women who protested on February 13 against the distorted image of Italian women generated by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's numerous sex scandals.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi covers his face during a vote of confidence at the Senate in Rome in this file picture taken May 15, 2008. An Italian judge ordered Berlusconi to stand trial on February 15, 2011, on charges that include paying an underage girl for sex.
A massive demonstration was organized 13/02/2011 by women to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a return to greater dignity in politics. Rome, Italy.
People march against Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi during a protest in Rome Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011. Thousands of women turned out in 200 Italian cities to denounce what they say is Berlusconi's debasing of females. Prosecutors want to try Berlusconi for allegedly paying a 17-year-old Moroccan girl for sex. Paying for prostitution with a minor is a crime in Italy. Berlusconi and the teenager have denied the allegation.
A protester wears a pig nose and a placard combing 'Hardcore' with Arcore where Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lives, at Rome's Piazza del Popolo, People's square, during a demonstration called 'if not now, when?' organized by Italian women in protest at 'degrading' media coverage of the recent sex scandals surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- and attitudes to women in general on February 13, 2011. Thousands of women were demonstrating all across Italy in the wake of weeks of lurid reporting on the women at the centre of investigations into the embattled leader -- and Berlusconi's own controversial comments in his defence.
Protesters gather at Rome's Piazza del Popolo, People's square, during a demonstration called 'if not now, when?' organized by Italian women in protest at 'degrading' media coverage of the recent sex scandals surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- and attitudes to women in general on February 13, 2011.
Thousands of women and men demonstrated yesterday in Palermo together with 1 million people in other Italian cities to defend the dignity of all people and to say 'stop' to prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Palermo, Italy. 13/02/2011
Women's movement FEMEN hold a protest against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in which they shed their underwear, at the Italian Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine. 14/02/2011
Protesters gather at Rome's Piazza del Popolo, People's square, during a demonstration called 'if not now, when?' organized by Italian women in protest at 'degrading' media coverage of the recent sex scandals surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- and attitudes to women in general on February 13, 2011.
