Italian PM Meloni refuses to back down on reporter ‘defamation’ trial

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday she will not withdraw her defamation suit against anti-mafia reporter Roberto Saviano, despite growing criticism that her position of power might skew the trial in her favour.

Published: 29 November 2022 14:46 CET

Italian anti-mafia reporter Roberto Saviano

Italian journalist Roberto Saviano is currently facing trial for calling Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni “a bastard” back in 2020. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

On Tuesday, the hard-right leader told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that she was confident the case would be treated with the necessary “impartiality”.

Meloni sued anti-mafia reporter Saviano for alleged defamation after he called her a “bastard” in a 2020 televised outburst over her attitude towards vulnerable migrants.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was in opposition at the time, but took office last month after an electoral campaign that promised to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.

Press freedom watchdogs and supporters of Saviano have called for the trial, which opened earlier in November, to be scrapped.

“I don’t understand the request to withdraw the complaint on the pretext that I am now prime minister,” Meloni said.

“I believe that all this will be treated with impartiality, considering the separation of powers.”

She also added: “I am simply asking the court where the line is between the legitimate right to criticise, gratuitous insult and defamation.”

Saviano, best known for his international mafia bestseller “Gomorrah”, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

The case dates back to December 2020 when Saviano was asked on a political TV chat show for a comment on the death of a six-month-old baby from Guinea in a shipwreck.

On the occasion, he railed at Meloni, who in 2019 had said that charity vessels which rescue migrants “should be sunk”.

Saviano is not the only journalist Meloni is taking to trial. One of the country’s best-known investigative reporters, Emiliano Fittipaldi, said last week the prime minister had sued him for defamation.

That trial is set to start in 2024.

Watchdogs say such trials are symbolic of a culture in Italy in which public figures intimidate reporters with repeated lawsuits, threatening the erosion of a free press.

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The strike comes after Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama — who is close to Meloni — called a top RAI editor to complain about a television report into Italy’s controversial migration deal with his country.

The Usigrai trade union called the strike from May 6 to May 7 saying talks with management had failed to address their concerns.

It cited numerous issues, including staff shortages and contract issues, but in first place was “the suffocating control over journalistic work, with the attempt to reduce RAI to a megaphone for the government”.

It had already used that phrase to object to what critics say is the increasing influence over RAI by figures close to Prime Minister Meloni, who leads Italy’s most right-wing government since World War II.

However, another union of RAI journalists, Unirai, said they would not join what they called a “political” strike, defending the return to “pluralism” at the broadcaster.

Funded in part by a licence fee and with top managers long chosen by politicians, RAI’s independence has always been an issue of debate.

But the arrival in power of Meloni — leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, who formed a coalition with Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing Forza Italia — redoubled concerns.

Tensions erupted at the weekend amid accusations RAI censored a speech by a leading writer criticising Meloni ahead of Liberation Day on April 25, when Italians mark the defeat of Fascism and the Nazis at the end of World War II.

Both RAI’s management and Meloni have denied censorship, and the premier posted the text of the monologue on her social media.

In another twist, Albania’s premier confirmed Thursday he called senior RAI editor Paolo Corsini about an TV report on Sunday into Italy’s plans to build two migration processing centres on Albanian territory.

Rama told La Stampa newspaper the report was “biased” and contained “lies” – adding that he had not raised the issue with Meloni.

The Report programme claimed the costs of migrant centres, which are under construction, were already “out of control” and raised questions about criminals benefiting from the project.