The Italian Government Vs Roberto Saviano. What the trials against the writer say about Italy
Roberto Saviano, one of the most famous Italian writers and journalists, is facing three ongoing trials for defamation for remarks against members of the current government. These are Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility Matteo Salvini, and Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. Of these trials, the first two are due to criminal complaints, while the latter is a civil lawsuit claiming compensation for a Facebook post published in 2018.
The first two cases are particularly serious, precisely because they will see Roberto Saviano involved in a criminal trial. The Constitutional Court ruled in 2021 that the current defamation law must be reformed, since it prescribes mandatory imprisonment, thus violating Art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights itself has pointed out in the past that, in defamation civil lawsuits, even an excessive fine can unfairly restrict the exercise of freedom of expression.
The first trial hearing for the criminal complaint filed by Meloni was held on 15 November. The trial for the criminal complaint filed by Salvini is scheduled for February 2023.
Salvini and Meloni’s complaints and the context of Saviano’s word
Meloni’s criminal complaint was filed by attorney Andrea Delmastro delle Vedove, who is currently undersecretary of Justice and MP of Brothers of Italy (Meloni’s party). The contested episode and the criminal complaints date back to 2020. On that occasion, Saviano intervened in a TV show. Answering questions from the host, he called Meloni and Salvini ‘bastards’. Saviano thus comments on the news of a 6-month-old baby who died during a shipwreck in the Mediterranean:
You might remember all the rubbish said about NGOs: “taxis of the sea”, “cruises”. Such words spent on this desperation. One can only say “you bastards, how could you? To Meloni, to Salvini. Bastards. How could all this pain be described like that”. It was legitimate to have a political opinion but not on the emergency. […] Pulling out the NGOs served the purpose of not having witnesses’.
Saviano named the two politicians for their political stances held at the time about migrants and sea rescues. In particular, Salvini, as Minister of the Interior, had issued a decree that provided for the confiscation of ships and a fine, thus affecting the rescue operations of NGOs. From the opposition side, Meloni had gone so far as to demand the confiscation of an NGO’s rescue ship and its sinking.
The “law and order” approach to migration certainly did not begin at that time, and was refined during the Gentiloni government. However, it is with the Conte government (2018–19) and with the actions of its Minister Salvini that the criminalisation of migrants and sea rescuers reached its peak. A policy that, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, accounted for 70% of deaths at sea in 2018. It is the so-called ‘closed ports’ policy, a slogan used for every ship that asks to disembark after saving shipwrecked people.
Conspiracy theories about ‘invasions’, ‘ethnic substitutions’ and the ever-present role of Soros have long been dominant patterns in Italian far-right parties. The League and Brothers of Italy have always been very similar about that, although the latter has always been an opposition party. In 2016, Meloni referred to the high rate of emigration abroad as “general evidence of ethnic substitution”, comparing that figure to 153 thousand immigrants, “mostly African men”’. In 2017 Meloni accused Soros of “encouraging the invasion of our country”. Slogans such as “Stop the invasion” or “Italians first” were pivotal in League’s propaganda, as well as hoaxes about asylum seekers in luxury hotels and financed by the state with 35 euros a day.
This harsh approach was followed by the criminalisation in the public discourse of NGOs. Ships that save lives were labelled as ‘sea taxis’, suggesting a transport service with potential collusion with smugglers and traffickers. The expression was launched by the 5 Star Movement and then became a widely circulated catchphrase, formally accompanied by talk of the “pull factor” that NGOs would constitute, favouring illegal immigration.
Matteo Salvini’s criminal complaint against Saviano dates back to 2018 and also fits into this exacerbated political landscape. As Minister of the Interior, Salvini spoke on several occasions about the possibility of removing the police protection for Saviano, who has been under protection since 2006 for threats received from the Camorra. A year later, Salvini returned to the subject, raising the concern of, among others, the Council of Europe, which openly spoke of a “threat” against Saviano. To the statements Salvini made in 2018, Saviano responded with a video published on the news website Fanpage.it, where he calls Salvini a ‘buffoon’ and ‘Minister of the Underworld”. A reference, the latter, to a book published at the beginning of the 20th century by the parliamentarian Gaetano Salvemini.
Saviano repeated his accusations in other videos to criticise Salvini, in particular, over the seizure of the military ship Diciotti, for which Salvini would later go on trial for aggravated kidnapping. During another sea rescue crisis forced by the government, Saviano stigmatised the actions of Salvini and another minister saying that “they [were] behaving like bandits”. Following these interventions, Salvini filed a criminal complaint, using the Ministry of the Interior letterhead.
“A strong, even fierce criticism by an intellectual has a degree of power, it is not an insult. I did not use that word or that criticism towards a private citizen, a person who has no power,” Roberto Saviano says to Valigia Blu. “I did it towards party leaders, people who have a huge media weaponry, and I did it in full awareness and with a precise objective, to show all the scandal towards what was happening.”
In both criminal complaints, the TV show and the website that voiced Saviano were not implicated. On 15th November took place the first hearing of the defamation trial for the remarks about Georgia Meloni. The new Prime Minister’s lawyer, Luca Libra, said that they were “considering” withdrawing the complaint. During the hearing, Matteo Salvini, who was called a ‘bastard’ along with Meloni, filed a request for civil action against Saviano.
We contacted both Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. We asked them whether the lawsuits against Saviano by members of the current government could damage the country’s image and if they could have an intimidating effect on freedom of expression. We also asked them whether they intend to go all the way with the criminal cases, and whether or not they have changed their minds about Saviano’s police protection (in 2018 Meloni said “I don’t know if killing Roberto Saviano is a priority of the Camorra”). If they respond we will update the article.
Bullying as a communicative strategy
A Minister of the Interior speaking of removing police protection while sending greetings and ‘kisses’ to a protected citizen could catch by surprise only those who have not followed Italian politics in recent years. Or those who have not followed the communication strategy carried out against journalists, writers, intellectuals and activists who defend human rights. In Italy, police protection concerns 618 people (data from June 2018), and among them are entrepreneurs, but also journalists and magistrates. The message, sent to just one (in this case Roberto Saviano), also reaches the other 617 and sounds like the State protects you as long as you are not against us.
In January 2019, journalist Federico Mello made a list on Facebook of people and organizations then targeted via social media by the Minister of Interior Matteo Salvini. The list included journalists, writers, intellectuals, unions and the National Association of Italian Partisans. A daily target practice where an ‘enemy’ of the Minister of the Interior was fed to the rabid fan base. This is a singular fact in itself, especially when one considers the functions of an Interior Minister. Above all, that of guaranteeing the security of citizens. A very serious case occurred when Salvini targeted two underage schoolgirls who had protested against him at a demonstration.
“They target intellectuals like me, Michela Murgia, Sandro Veronesi, and recently Antonio Scurati because they need to compact the hatred of their own side,” says Roberto Saviano. “Because they consider the intellectual a thief by definition. As an intellectual you steal, you earn from your opinions, and you earn from your books. Through this strategy, they achieve a great victory. If you earn from your work, it means that what you believe is false. When they spit on NGOs and target migrants they are perceived as authentic, while those who want to defend lives at sea, protect NGOs, and stand up for people like Mimmo Lucano, are immediately seen as false, as profiteers’.
One of the many ways of conveying these anti-intellectual sentiments has been through the years with false statements attributed to writers like Michela Murgia or Saviano himself, spread as memes. The intellectuals in these memes are always anti-Italian, ready to favour migrants, especially those from Africa. Another favourite target of these campaigns has been the MP Laura Boldrini.
An exemplary case of these dynamics occurred when Murgia refused to make a statement about migrants for a TV program hosted by right-wing journalist Nicola Porro. Murgia’s refusal was aggressively attacked by the journalist himself (“ignorant woman,” “the new Laura Boldrini,” “she lives thanks to the money that Berlusconi give her via Einaudi publishing house”) later relaunched by Salvini:
These targets also included activists such as Carola Rackete, the captain of Sea Watch, the ship that in 2019 forced the blockade on Lampedusa to disembark the migrants on board. Salvini himself went to trial for defamation after calling her, while he was Minister of the Interior, a “blowhard, crook, rich and spoiled German communist.” The trial is currently on hold because the Senate has to decide whether Salvini’s words were part of his political activity.
Yet it is the whole right-wing press, media outlets such as Libero, Il Giornale, and La Verità, that conduct a daily target practice, as if current events were only a pretext for advancing an “us vs them” rhetoric. Recently, for example, Luigi Mascheroni, a journalist who teaches Theory and Techniques of Cultural Information at the Università Cattolica of Milan, lashed out at Sinistra Italiana MP Aboubakar Soumahoro, calling him “another Saviano, but African.” This right-wing media landscape looks like a parallel universe governed by an “either with us or against us” rule, with symbolic targets to be attacked day by day. And now this parallel universe and its political culture are in charge.
Saviano was recently depicted on the website Verità & Finanza as a beggar with a hat in his hand. The fact that he got tax benefits, provided automatically during the pandemic, was falsely depicted as a request for aid and compared to begging: “Saviano was impoverished by Covid and Draghi helped him with 10 thousand euros.”
The strategies of the League and Brothers of Italy are very similar when it comes to promoting hatred against intellectuals or dissident voices. “It is unbearable this presumption of you lefties. You think you have the right to insult anyone on the right, and we on the right should be silently insulted, according to you […]. Who do you think you are?” This is how Brothers of Italy MP Giovanni Donzelli commented on the indictment of Roberto Saviano in November 2021, in a video posted on Facebook with the title “ISN’T HE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF?”
On lawsuits too, the League and Brothers of Italy are ideal partners. In late September, Meloni announced a lawsuit against journalist Rula Jebreal. Jebreal had criticized Meloni’s criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers, who went so far in the election campaign as to weaponise a rape video, relaunched by her on social media. Jebreal used Meloni’s father’s criminal record as an example: crimes, the journalist explained, are individual culpability, not collective. That applies to those who govern a country as does to immigrants.
Since then, the journalist has been subjected to a constant barrage from the right-wing press. Another case, in addition, concerns the newly appointed Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. The newspaper Domani published an investigation in late October into the considerable sums Crosetto has allegedly received from arms companies since 2014. In response, the Minister announced he has given a legal mandate to his lawyers to file a complaint.
One of the main effects of this everlasting campaign of delegitimisation is to isolate those who, for one reason or another, become symbols and are thus targeted.
“Solidarity in Italy has been given to me mostly in private,” Saviano says. “It’s important to divide between people who pat you on the back, and send you a private message saying ‘I’m with you,’ and those who do it publicly. Those who do it publicly are siding with you; those who pat you on the back are protecting themselves.”
If these words may seem ungenerous, it is worth mentioning the recent appeal published in the newspaper La Stampa, signed by Pen International director Burhan Sonmez. Sonmez asked Meloni to withdraw the criminal complaint while asking the government to protect investigative journalism. In a country where freedom of expression earns headlines and intense debates more when “political correctness” or “cancel culture” can be talked about, the rallying cry of Pen International’s director has so far been largely ignored. Although, internationally, it has also been followed by the statements made by — among the others — Index of Censorship and Reporters Without Borders. Even the same trial that has just begun has not triggered any particular reaction in Italy. Paradoxically, it has been covered more carefully by the right-wing press. “Saviano bastard,” headlined for example Libero, a newspaper whose editor, Antonio Angelucci, is a League MP.
The exceptions are not that many so far. Among them are the writers Helena Janeczek and Chiara Valerio. Michela Murgia, on Instagram, pointed out the serious contradiction that Saviano is experiencing: “A man protected by the State because of his words will today be brought before a judge by the head of government of that State because of his words. You tell me in what other democracy have you seen this happen.” A number of writers (including Murgia herself, Sandro Veronesi, and Nicola Lagioia), La Stampa editor Massimo Giannini, and actress Kasia Smutniak appeared at the 15th November hearing. La Stampa published a statement by Saviano in which the writer explains the reasons for his words toward Meloni and Salvini. Associations that protect human rights and freedom of expression, such as Amnesty Italia and Articolo21, have also expressed their support and concern for the trial. The impression, however, is that this is more about some representatives, and not instead a matter of public importance, affecting a community. If anything, it concerns conflicting factions.
This situation is symptomatic of how the Italian political landscape has evolved in recent decades. If at the time of the Berlusconi governments, from the late 1990s onward, attacks on journalists, writers or activists consolidated a relevant part of public opinion, these attacks now more often generate indifference, or complicity in the aggression (“there is a difference between criticism and insult,” “this time he went too far”). Taking a stand has become something that, pragmatically, does not pay off.
“The moment you decide to take a stand against politicians or political parties, and this is not just about the right here, you have to face isolation and pressure,” Saviano explains. “For example, films are supported by banks, and banks’ boards of directors are influenced by politics, and so when you take a stand against the government there can be a ‘vendetta’, the films that are being funded can be frozen, if your signature is on them. If you are one of the many voices there is no problem, you are part of the circus. What I am talking about are the people who, for some reason related to their journey, their choices, their books, and their works become symbolic. And so, to have them in a studio, to have them in a newspaper, to have them in an editorial project is in some way to make a choice. They are not one voice among others. That’s why intellectuals, who are different from pundits, who are different from all the politicking of any tendency, are facing huge pressure.”
As we have seen in these first weeks of government, after all, migrants and NGOs are back in the crosshairs of the far-right, with the League and Brothers of Italy as government partners. The pretext has been provided by the rescues operated by four ships: Humanity1, Geo Barents, Ocean Viking and Rise Above. The government came to a veritable tug-of-war with France and Europe in the name of a specious “emergency.” In the face of international controversy and reaction, the government seems intent on continuing down the path of criminalization. There is renewed talk of fines and seizure of ships for NGOs. The script thus seems about to repeat itself, in a more cynical and inhumane way.
The lawsuits against Saviano are the most visible part of the problem
SLAPPs, as in Saviano’s case, are only one aspect of the problem in Italy. There is, more generally, a very strong tendency to go after media operators or activists. One usually thinks in categories, when talking about journalists, writers or activists, but those who go after them apply only one category: silencing.
The association Ossigeno per l’Informazione (Oxygen for Press), in a 2016 report, already showed an 8 per cent annual increase per year since 2011 in defamation lawsuits. In 2017, judges assessed 9749 defamation lawsuits, and 67 per cent of these were dismissed. In 2022, between January and April, Ossigeno per l’Informazione surveyed 118 verified cases of threats to media workers. Of these, only 31 per cent involved abuse of lawsuits.
Giving an exact shape to the phenomenon through lawsuit statistics is among the problems encountered by those working in the field. Alberto Spampinato, president of Ossigeno per l’Informazione, explained to Valigia Blu the difficulties the association encounters, which are
The lack of systematic publication of official data on the outcome of trials, the reluctance of victims to talk about it, especially because they fear greater retaliation and because (as is often the case) they fear reactions that make them appear guilty of defamation for the mere fact of having been sued or charged, that is, accused by a person without a judge having yet pronounced.
So there is a whole cultural system of reticence, omertà, and victim blaming for those who suffer lawsuits, which make SLAPPs particularly effective. Or, in the case of intimidation of another nature, guarantees the knowledge of impunity for the perpetrators.
Recently, another major international organization that protects freedom of expression has been dealing with Italy. The Committee to Protect Journalists asked Italian authorities to drop defamation charges against three journalists, Danilo Lupo, Francesca Pizzolante and Mary Tota. The CPJ also asked the authorities to “stop using the country’s criminal code to prosecute journalists.”
The case concerns the criminal complaint filed by Teresa Bellanova. Bellanova is currently a member of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi’s party, but the criminal complaint dates back to 2014 when she was a Democratic Party MP and served as undersecretary. Bellanova sued the three journalists for defamation and complicity in extortion after they reported on the labour lawsuit between Bellanova herself and her former press officer, Maurizio Pascali. In 2014 Bellanova also sued Pascali for defamation and extortion.
In September 2022, the judge agreed with Pascali. The charges of complicity in extortion for the three journalists were dropped, but the charges of defamation remained. The three were acquitted in the first instance two weeks ago, but they still have to face two levels of judgment.
In 2021, Italia Viva’s leader Matteo Renzi announced a lawsuit against La Stampa and The Post International, which had reported on the senator’s trip to Dubai. On Twitter, La Stampa editor Massimo Giannini commented, “This morning I spoke on the phone with the leader of Italia Viva, who preannounced a lawsuit. But he also confirmed to me that he is in fact in Dubai. That is why I am curious to understand the reasons for his lawsuit.” This is hardly the only lawsuit against journalists filed by Renzi, who in announcing them on Twitter uses a specific hashstag, #blowbyblow.
What we have previously seen for Saviano and far-right or populist parties is the glaring tip of a huge iceberg. If the political conflict has escalated in recent years, the disproportionality of the defamation law and the abuses it allows are still the same. There has been the impunity that political power can exercise while repressing those who dissent or simply do their jobs. In this state of affairs, silence and self-censorship are a survival strategy, but also, in fact, a form of connivance.
In Reporters Without Borders’ annual report, one of the problematic aspects highlighted for Italy, in addition to defamation law, is precisely the tendency toward conformity and self-censorship:
For the most part, Italian journalists enjoy a climate of freedom. But they sometimes give in to the temptation to censor themselves, either to conform to their news organisation’s editorial line, or to avoid a defamation suit or other form of legal action, or out of fear of reprisals by extremist groups or organised crime.
It further reads:
Online intimidation campaigns are orchestrated to “punish” journalists who have the courage to explore such sensitive issues as collusion between mafia families and local politicians.
Suing those, like Saviano, who have visibility and fame, according to a specific political agenda, is an intimidation that operates on different levels. First of all, if the lawsuit results in a trial or even in a lower court conviction, one can tarnish a reputation for years, guaranteeing a strong ad hominem argument (“you are a defamer!”). But most importantly, the lawsuit sends a very strong and indirect message to anyone who speaks or writes in the media. “The strategy is this,” Saviano says, “by hitting me you hit everyone else, plus there is a total subservience of the press.”
From this point of view, even revising defamation law, focusing more on economic sanctions, could only bring a change in the type of intimidation: money instead of jail. Journalist Amalia De Simone (who has faced several SLAPP cases throughout her career) pointed this fact out in 2017 about the abuse of civil litigation and claims, particularly for freelance journalists who do not have legal protections guaranteed by news outlets.
Ultimately, there is a deep-rooted problem of political culture that does not want to consider freedom of expression as a true democratic cornerstone. And the far-right, in Italy, is only the most aggressive version of the phenomenon, not an exception.
