We have just launched the petition “Stop using animals in the Palio” (www.nopalio.it) and they are already trying to censor us. The Palio Promotional Association (Consorzio Tutela Palio di Siena) has sent us a letter stating that any photographs shot at the Palio should be “strictly for personal use”. We are accused of having published a photo of the central piazza of this Tuscan city while a race was being run, watched by hundreds, if not thousands, of people, most of them equipped with cameras.

According to the Association, a free citizen in Italy cannot shoot and publish a photo of a public event, founded seven centuries ago, which takes place on publicly owned land and is open to all. As if the City of Venice should try to prohibit tourists from posting the photos they took from the Rialto Bridge on Facebook.

We have requested the lawyers of the Palio Promotional Association to send us a copy of the official registration of the trademark “Palio di Siena”, but as of now they have not replied.

However, they have assured us that our right to criticize “is undeniable, if kept within the legally permissible limits”. Thanks a lot. Now we know that thinking, discussing and formulating opinions are rights that the Palio Promotional Association can courteously grant if it chooses to do so. We at IHP consider ourselves honoured to have obtained this right to criticism “if kept within legally permissible limits”.

At school they taught us that “everyone is entitled to freely express his or her thought in words, writing, or any other means of dissemination” (Constitution of the Republic of Italy, Art. 21). They never told us about any Siena Promotional Association that can grant the right to criticize and set the legally permissible limits. But maybe this was just because our teachers weren’t from Siena.

Although this is laughable enough, it is beside the point, which is instead very serious. The incriminated photograph does not show a healthy, happy horse. It shows one of the many accidents that are making this event detestable to more and more people. What provisions are being taken by the organizers of this race? Are they looking for ways to keep these accidents from happening? No, they are just sweeping the dirt under the carpet by trying to prevent the publication of pictures that show what really happens. The letter in which the organizers of the event allow themselves to grant constitutional rights shows that the Palio in Siena seems to take place in another world. Even regarding legal questions, the Palio shows itself to be what it is: an event that is arrogant and heavy-handed toward both animals and humans.