An Italian journalist who ridiculed the small stature of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni online has been ordered by a court to pay €5,000 ($5,440) in damages, she told AFP on Friday.
Giulia Cortese, who is freelance, had called the far-right leader “a little woman” in an October 2021 social media post, adding: “You don’t scare me. Furthermore, you are 1.2m tall (3.9’).”
The comment was a response to Meloni’s announcement on Facebook that she was suing Cortese for having earlier posted a falsified photo of the premier sitting in front of a photograph of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, was in opposition at the time.
Contacted by AFP on Friday, Cortese confirmed that the Milan court had ordered her to pay €5,000 to Meloni, a civil party in the case, for defamation.
“Italy’s government has a serious problem with freedom of expression and journalistic dissent,” Cortese wrote on X. “This country seems to get closer to (Viktor) Orban’s Hungary: these are bad times for independent journalists and opinion leaders.”
Cortese told AFP that a separate accusation over the Mussolini comparison was thrown out, as it did not constitute a crime.
Meloni, who took office in October 2022, has a history of suing journalists.
In the most high-profile case, she successfully took investigative journalist Roberto Saviano to court for defamation.
In December 2020, Saviano – author of the bestselling book Gomorrah about the Naples mafia – used a pejorative title on her on national television for her hard line on migrants.
Last October, a court handed Saviano a suspended fine of €1,000 in the case. Meloni had sought €75,000 in damages.
In 2021, Meloni also sued two journalists from newspaper Domani, in a case that is due to begin in November.
It concerns an article alleging that she tried to use her influence to get a member of her party a job supplying coronavirus (Covid-19) masks to Italy’s healthcare system.
Il Messaggero daily has reported the height of Meloni as 1.63m, or 5’ 3”.