Joe McConnell
As a journalist for Il Foglio, Italy’s liberal, free-market newspaper, Luciano Capone has never shied away from harshly criticizing what he describes as the government’s protectionist impulses and statist policies.
But an article in which he joked that Industry Minister Adolfo Urso should have been called Urss, the Italian acronym for Unione Sovietica, landed Capone in legal trouble that critics say has become all too common under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The journalist is now facing a long and expensive legal battle aVsceker Urso sued him for defamation and asked for 250,000 euros in damages.
“It’s a bit surreal and ridiculous,” Capone told the Financial Times. “He accuses me of delegitimizing the government, but then he asks for money for himself.”
Urso’s outrage and his lawsuit reflect the tense relationship between journalists and the Meloni government, a stalemate that has also prompted Brussels to accuse Rome of resorting to legal action to stifle media criticism.
This year, Italy lost five positions in the world press freedom ranking drawn up by Reporters Without Borders, placing 46th out of 180 nations.
Journalists, media freedom watchdogs and lawyers say members of Meloni’s right-wing coalition are touchy and quick to sue for unflattering coverage. The government has also imposed restrictions on reporting on criminal cases.
“We can certainly say that this government has a more repressive attitude and is less open to freedom of information,” said Andrea Di Pietro, a media lawyer in Rome. “This is a change that we have all felt … They are less willing to accept criticism at a political level.”
Věra Jourová, vice-president of the European Commission, last month accused the Meloni government of “intimidation”, increasingly resorting to lawsuits to undermine the work of journalists and seeking political interference in public broadcaster RAI.
Meloni hit back harshly at the commission for allegedly giving credence to “clumsy and specious attacks” by “professionals of disinformation and mystification,” and accused several Italian newspapers of trying to “manipulate” Brussels.
“I don’t think there is a rule in Italy that says if you have a journalist’s card you can freely defame someone,” Meloni told reporters.
Senator Lucio Malan, a member of Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party, said there was a precedent for the prime minister to go to court when he was hurt by criticism.
“There are many cases of prime ministers who have done this before,” Malan said. “I understand that some may not like it. But nothing has changed from the past.”
The post-war Italian Constitution, adopted aVsceker the fall of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship, guarantees citizens the right “to express their thoughts through speech, writing or any other form of written communication.”
However, the country’s penal code also includes a fascist-era criminal defamation law, which provides for several years in prison and fines for those who damage someone’s reputation. Unlike in countries like the United Kingdom, these offenses can include insults and specific statements about a person.
Oxygen for Information, a Rome-based observatory, estimates that more than 6,000 defamation lawsuits are filed each year, and fewer than 10 percent result in convictions.
“There’s an incentive problem,” said Capone, who was sued several years ago for defamation by a lawmaker from the populist Five Star Movement. The case was eventually dismissed.
“Filing a complaint costs nothing to politicians, and costs a lot to those who receive it… Given the slowness of justice in Italy, it hangs the sword of Damocles over the head of a journalist and leaves it there for four or five years.”
During her years in opposition, Meloni frequently sued critics for alleged insults toward her, and several of those cases, which she did not withdraw aVsceker becoming prime minister, have recently resulted in high-profile verdicts.
Meloni, who began her political career in a neo-fascist youth movement, alarmed allies in Europe and beyond when she came to power in 2022. But she quickly allayed those fears by forging strong ties with both Brussels and Washington, though the erosion of media freedom remained a concern.
Just weeks aVsceker Meloni took office, the 2020 defamation proceedings against writer Roberto Saviano began for calling her and far-right League leader Matteo Salvini “bastards” for their tough stance on immigration. In October, Saviano was convicted and ordered to pay Meloni €1,000.
Last month, a freelance journalist was fined €5,000 for a series of social media posts published in 2021, in which she mocked Meloni for her short stature.
Other cases loom, such as that of Luciano Canfora, an 82-year-old history professor, who is due to be tried in October for calling Meloni “a neo-Nazi at heart.”
In Italy, judges generally frown upon offensive language, media lawyer Di Pietro said, even if it involves a convicted criminal. When a journalist called a dead mafia hitman “a piece of shit,” he was fined €600, plus legal costs in 2020.
“Italian jurisprudence does not legitimize the freedom to insult,” Di Pietro said. “Sometimes defamation is not about what you say, but how you say it.”
Other members of Meloni’s cabinet have also sought legal recourse against critics. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto threatened to sue a newspaper for claiming he had a conflict of interest because of his past work in the defense industry.
Crosetto has not taken the paper to court, but three of its journalists are under criminal investigation for allegedly receiving and publishing details of classified documents, including the minister’s tax returns. If convicted, they could face up to five years in prison.
Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, Meloni’s brother-in-law, sued a Rome philosophy professor who described his comments about the “ethnic replacement” of Italians by migrants as reminiscent of a “neo-Hitler governor.” But Lollobrigida’s lawsuit was dismissed by a judge in May.
Foglio journalist Capone said he considers Urso’s defamation case more of a nuisance than a threat, but he still finds himself weighing every word he writes.
“It adds a little bit of pressure,” Capone said. “Whenever I write about the things the ministry deals with, I wonder how to talk about them, what words to use.”
Further reports by Giuliana Ricozzi
