Renowned Italian writer Roberto Saviano was fined 1,000 euros in the first instance for defaming Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom he called a “bastard” in 2020 in a television program in which he expressed his opinion on the anti-immigrant rhetoric of some Italian politician.
The process began in November last year, when Meloni had only been at the helm of the Italian government for a month. In December 2020, the intellectual took part in a television program in which he denounced the alleged exploitation of the migration phenomenon across the central Mediterranean by the far right for electoral purposes. “You must have remembered all the rubbish thrown at NGOs which they call ‘sea taxis’ or ‘cruise ships’. All I can say is: bastards. To Meloni and [Matteo] Salvini: You bastards, how can you do this?” he shouted on the screen, commenting on a video that showed a woman who lost her six-month-old son at sea after the boat in which he was traveling with other people , had capsized. They tried to reach the European shores. Saviano mentioned Salvini, the League’s leader, and Meloni for their opposition to NGOs rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean.
The Prime Minister condemned the writer for libel. Not so Salvini, the current government vice president, although he tried to join the prosecution when the trial had already begun.
Saviano, who is protected by a police escort for works in which he exposes mafia mechanisms, such as the successful Gomorrah (2006), considers this trial to be an attack on freedom of expression. “It arises from my criticism of those who have made fear and cynicism their policy,” said the writer this Thursday upon his arrival in court before hearing the verdict. And he described the trial as “intimidation” towards him.
“Today the political power wants to persecute those who criticize their work. My radical criticism comes with full knowledge of those who caused the sinking and turned the Mediterranean into a place of death. Giorgia Meloni is frightening public opinion by talking about an invasion when the numbers say otherwise and calling for the sinking of the boats of those trying to rescue the migrants. The more serious the crime, the stronger the criticism leveled against it. This is an act of intimidation against me, which has also resulted in one of my previously recorded programs being removed from public television. How works [el primer ministro Viktor] Orbán in Hungary meets a few so that everyone gets the message. “My words have frightened this government,” the author said.
The public prosecutor’s office had asked for a fine of 10,000 euros for the writer and Meloni had asked for compensation of 75,000 euros, since “a bastard is not a criticism, but always an insult,” according to his lawyer, who has claimed this as the only aim of the author was to attack “the moral and personal dignity” of the leader of the Fratelli d’Italia. “The defendant used exaggerated, vulgar and aggressive language; “You can criticize, but no one is above the criminal code,” said the lawyer during the trial.
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Meanwhile, the confrontation between Salvini and Saviano has been going on for some time. Another defamation lawsuit is pending between the two, stemming from a 2018 publication by the writer on his social networks in which he referred to the then Interior Minister as “the Minister of Mala Vita” used in Italy. to refer to the mafia. Shortly thereafter, Salvini threatened to withdraw Saviano’s escort, a move that the Council of Europe eventually defined as “state intimidation.”
Recently, the writer won a civil lawsuit against the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano over another publication from 2018 in which he commented on his appointment as director of the news program TG2, the second channel of the Italian public television. In this case, Saviano links the current minister “to political figures involved in various judicial investigations in the field of organized crime.” The judge who pronounced the verdict acquitted the letter because its statements fell within the scope of the right to criticism.
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