In 2020, in Italy, Roberto Saviano protested, as part of a television program, against the migration policy carried out by the Salvini government with the support of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, current President of the Council. Giorgia Meloni filed a complaint for defamation. The case is before the Rome court.
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During a political program on the private channel 7, Roberto Saviano was invited to give his opinion on the remarks of the leader of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party, says RFI’s correspondent in Rome, Anne Le Nir. Georgia Meloni had in fact declared, following a shipwreck in the Mediterranean during which a six-month-old baby lost his life, that “ Rome should have repatriated the migrants and sunk the boat that rescued them “.
For the author of Gomorra, such a statement was humanly untenable. Hence his very crude reaction. Roberto Saviano did not hesitate to describe Giorgia Meloni as “ bastard “. Once in power, Giorgia Meloni did not see fit to withdraw her complaint, believing that the matter would be handled “ with impartiality in view of the separation of powers “.
The writer and investigative journalist faces a sentence of six months to three years in prison. The verdict is expected this Thursday, October 12, 2023.
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On X (formerly Twitter), the writer estimated that the court of Rome should “ establish whether or not it is possible to exercise the right of criticism “.
Giorgia Meloni, to justify the technical incapacity of her minister, artefici di continui and ripetuti obbrobri giuridici, attack the giudice (e non la sentenza, cosa che avrebbe potuto fare se solo avesse deepeto il caso o se qualcuno lo avesse fatto per lei) che ha… pic.twitter.com/ExAeqiY7dK
— Roberto Saviano (@robertosaviano) October 3, 2023
For Hervé Rayner, specialist in Italy and lecturer in political science at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, interviewed by RFI, it is a judicialization of the political debate. “ There is undoubtedly the ambition to make an example with Roberto Saviano. If Roberto Saviano were ever to be convicted, it would be a way of accentuating the censorship that will be exercised in public space. And moreover, if it were not, it would also be easy to say that it is the magistrates who are in the pay of the opposition. Among the long-term strategies, there is also the fact that it can still count on a generally very favorable media field, and for a very long time. Giorgia Meloni entered politics in 1992 and this is already a time when most editorial offices are generally aligned with the government. In this, she already has an advantage. »
The President of the Council, Georgia Meloni, criticized at the beginning of October the decision of a Sicilian judge who considered her government’s latest anti-immigration decree to be contrary to the Constitution and European law.
Read alsoItaly: a judge disavows a part of Giorgia Meloni’s migration policy