An Italian journalist has been ordered to pay the country’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, damages of €5,000 (£4,210) over social media posts that made fun of her height, after a judge ruled that they amounted to “body shaming”.
The judge also imposed a suspended fine of €1,200 on Giulia Cortese, a journalist based in Milan, for the “defamatory” posts on X from 2021, when Ms Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party was still in opposition.
Ms Cortese posted a digitally altered picture on X showing the politician apparently standing in front of a bookshelf upon which a framed photo of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had been artificially added.
In a post on Facebook, Ms Meloni said the “falsified photo” was of “unique gravity” and that she would be taking legal action against the journalist.
Later the same day, Mr Cortese said she had deleted the image after realising it was fake, but accused Ms Meloni of creating a “media pillory” against her, and said the Facebook post “qualifies you for what you are: a little woman”.
“You don’t scare me, Giorgia Meloni,” she said in a separate post. “After all, you’re only 1.2m [3ft 9in] tall. I can’t even see you.”
The journalist was acquitted over the tweet comparing Meloni to Mussolini, but convicted of defamation over the latter two, which the Milan judge said amounted to “body shaming”.
Reacting to the verdict, Ms Cortese said the Italian government had a “serious problem with freedom of expression and journalistic dissent”.
She also told the Guardian that being convicted over a “joke phrase” was “scandalous”.
“There’s [a] climate of persecution,” she said. “I don’t feel I have the freedom any more to write about this government, because once you are identified as an inconvenient journalist for this government, they don’t let anything pass,”
She has the option to appeal but has not yet confirmed whether she will do so. “Going ahead with it risks costing me a lot,” she said, “and I don’t know how it would end.”
This isn’t the first time Ms Meloni has taken action against someone for criticising her publicly.
In May, Sir Salman Rushdie told her to “be less childish and grow up” after she sued a prominent author for calling her a “bastard” over her hardline views on migrant crossings into Italy.
Roberto Saviano, the author and investigative journalist, was found guilty of defamation in October 2023 after insulting Georgia Meloni during a TV discussion about a six-month-old baby from Guinea who died while crossing the Mediterranean with his mother.
“All the bullshit [Ms Meloni says about], sea taxis, cruises [for migrants],” he said. “All I can say is: bastards, how could you? Meloni, [Matteo] Salvini: bastards.”
He was fined a symbolic €1,000 (£860) in what was seen as a test of freedom of expression in the country.
Defamation in Italy can be tried at civil or criminal courts. At the latter, the crime of aggravated defamation can be found punishable by six years in jail, the harshest sentence of this type in the EU after Slovakia, where it can lead to seven-year jail sentences.
Speaking at the Turin Book Fair earlier this year, British-American novelist Sir Salman said he disapproved of the case.
“At my personal risk, I have to say that politicians should grow a thicker skin because a politician today, as well as having great power, also has great authority,” he said, according to Ansa, Italy’s national news agency.
“So it is normal that some of the people should speak about them directly, even badly, also using a bad word like the one Roberto used. I would give this lady a piece of advice – to be less childish and to grow up.”
Meloni is also suing the Israeli-born Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal, who has Italian and Israeli citizenship, over a social media post dating from September 2022.
A defamation case was filed over a tweet by Jebreal alleging Meloni had said asylum seekers were criminals who wanted to “replace” white Christians. Meloni sued Jebreal for allegedly attributing “very serious statements and political positions” to her.
Fabio Rampelli, a Brothers of Italy politician and vice-president of the lower house of the Italian Parliament, is also suing Jebreal for defamation over a tweet about a neofascist commemorative ceremony in January in Rome during which hundreds of men performed the fascist salute.
According to a recent study by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, during Meloni’s first year in power in Italy (2022-23), Europe’s highest number of strategic lawsuits against public participation – so-called ‘SLAPP’ cases, were brought in the country. SLAPPs represent a heavy-handed form of litigation used by wealthy and powerful individuals to harass, intimidate and deter journalists from reporting on their wrongdoing, thereby discouraging scrutiny of matters in the public.
