[Image: Flickr/cc]
Placebo frontman Brian Molko is being charged with defamation after appearing to call the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, a “piece of shit, fascist, racist” while performing at a festival in Turin in 2023.
Italy’s justice ministry has now allowed prosecutors in Turin to move forward with the legal proceedings after Meloni sued the singer over his comments in August 2023. Prosecutors subsequently opened an investigation into the claims and have charged Molko with “contempt of the institutions”.
Defaming the Italian government, parliament, courts or the army carries a fine of up to €5,000 (R96,000) and a direct summons to trial. Although public defamation in Italy can carry a prison term of up to three years, it’s unlikely that Molko will be jailed for his words.
Meloni leads the nationalist Brothers of Italy party and the hard-right coalition that has led the country since 2022 and pursued hardline policies on immigration, abortion and same-sex parenting.
Meloni’s political party has in the past even banned surrogacy, saying that couples who use overseas services are ‘on a par with terrorists, paedophiles and war criminals.’ The Brothers of Italy are so hard-line that the granddaughter of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini recently said she was leaving the party because it was “too rightwing.”
That says a lot, and Meloni doesn’t look like a Placebo fan either.
According to The Guardian, Meloni’s first year in office recorded the highest number of lawsuits against public participation and in May last year, the philosopher Donatella Di Cesare, who was being sued by Meloni’s brother-in-law for comparing one of his speeches to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, claimed that her government was “strategically using defamation suits to silence public intellectuals.”
A spokesperson for the band said there would be no comment which is probably wise. Just pay the fine and get out of Italy while you’re still 36 degrees.
[Source: Guardian]
