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Court to rule on Italian PM Meloni’s case against anti-mafia reporter

An Italian court is set to decide Thursday on a defamation case pitting Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni against journalist Roberto Saviano, which he has characterised as a battle for free speech.

Published: 12 October 2023 09:16 CEST
Updated: 12 October 2023 11:35 CEST
Journalist Roberto Saviano leaves a hearing in a defamation lawsuit from Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
Journalist Roberto Saviano leaves a hearing in February 2023 in the defamation lawsuit filed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP.

Meloni sued over comments Saviano made criticising her stance on migration and the charity ships that rescue migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean from North Africa.

It went to trial in November 2022, just weeks after she took office at the head of a hard-right coalition elected in part on a promise to end mass migration into Italy.

“I am being prosecuted for the words I used to criticise the populist lies uttered against NGOs and migrants in recent years,” Saviano wrote on Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

READ ALSO: Press freedom fears as Italian PM Meloni takes Saviano to trial

Saviano, best known for his international mafia bestseller “Gomorrah”, risks up to three years in prison if found guilty, although any decision on Thursday is open to appeal.

He is supported by press freedom groups, who have said the case sends a “chilling message” to journalists.

“The judge will have to establish whether or not it is possible to exercise the right of criticism” in Italy, Saviano wrote on social media on October 3rd. 

His lawyer, Antonio Nobile, told AFP on Wednesday the case “is important from a point of view of the health of Italian democracy”.

The conviction of a high-profile figure such as Saviano “would have a very strong deterrent effect on ordinary people”, he added. The hearing in Rome is due to start at 2pm.

Migrant shipwreck

The case revolves around comments Saviano made on a political TV chat show following the death of a six-month-old baby from Guinea in a shipwreck.

The baby, Joseph, had been one of 111 migrants rescued by the Open Arms charity ship, but died before he could receive medical attention.

READ ALSO: What’s behind Italy’s soaring number of migrant arrivals?

In footage shot by rescuers and shown to Saviano on the show, the baby’s mother can be heard weeping “Where’s my baby? Help, I lose my baby!”

A visibly emotional Saviano then blasted Meloni and Matteo Salvini – the leader of the anti-immigrant League party, now her deputy prime minister – who have both long used anti-migrant rhetoric.

“I just want to say to Meloni, and Salvini, you bastards! How could you?” Saviano said on the show.

READ ALSO: Italy investigates Placebo frontman over calling Giorgia Meloni ‘fascist’

The year before, Meloni had said charity vessels which rescue migrants “should be sunk”, while Salvini, as interior minister that same year, blocked rescue ships from docking in Italian ports.

In October 2022, Meloni took office on a promise to end illegal landings on Italy’s shores – only to see numbers surge.

Criticism of judges

Saviano, who lives under police protection due to threats from the Naples “Camorra” mafia, has decried an unequal fight between him and the country’s top politician.

Meloni’s lawyers have argued that, in suing Saviano, she is defending her reputation after being “insulted” on national television.

The verdict comes against a backdrop of increased tensions between Meloni’s government and the judiciary.

She led personal criticism earlier this month levelled at a judge who ruled her cabinet’s new anti-migrant decree was unconstitutional and contrary to European law.

“The controversies of recent weeks have certainly not reassured us,” Saviano’s lawyer said.

READ ALSO: Six things to know about the state of press freedom in Italy

Deputy Prime Minister Salvini has joined Meloni’s case as a civil party seeking damages.

He has filed a separate defamation suit against Saviano for calling him the “minister of the criminal underworld” in a social media post in 2018.

The next hearing is due on December 7th, when Salvini is set to give testimony, Nobile said.

Defamation through the media can be punished in Italy with prison sentences from six months to three years.

But Italy’s Constitutional Court urged lawmakers in 2020 and 2021 to rewrite the legislation, saying jail time for such cases was unconstitutional and should only be resorted to in cases of “exceptional severity”.

Italy has long compared poorly to its European neighbours for press freedom. It ranked 41st in the 2023 world press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders, up from 58th in 2022.

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POLITICS

Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

The year 2024 is a bumper one for elections, among them the European elections in June. Italy is of course a member of the EU - so can foreign residents vote in the elections that will almost certainly affect their daily lives?

Published: 3 May 2024 15:25 CEST
Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy. 

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote? 

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels. 

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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