Migrants, Salvini on trial for defamation against Carola Rackete

Offense or political criticism? The whole process that opened today in Milan is played out here and which sees Matteo Salvini, leader of the League and former Minister of the Interior, accused of defamation of Carola Rackete, commander of Sea Watch 3 accused on social media of being “complicit of smugglers and traffickers, braggart, criminal, rich German outlaw, delinquent, rich and spoiled German Communist, German mint, criminal commander “. Words written on Facebook between 26 June and 19 July 2019 when the commander landed in Lampedusa with a few dozen castaways, forcing the blockade imposed by the Italian authorities. A behavior that Salvini criticized on social networks and that for the defender, the lawyer Claudia Eccher, have a connection with his activity as a parliamentarian. “The heated, hyperbolic expressions are connected and functional to a political message of clear government choice” on immigration. “In politics there is a change of linguistic paradigm: from courtly tones we have passed to the paradigm of mirroring with short, common, bright tones” underlines the lawyer who requested the acquittal by raising a question of unquestionability – the sentences fall within the perimeter of criticism and its political activity – and of inadmissibility given that it can be brought to trial only after the authorization of the Senate to proceed. Issues on which the judge will decide in the next hearing, scheduled for June 23, and in respect of which the public prosecutor and the civil party have asked for rejection. “The disputed sentences do not exactly belong to a political discourse but instead concern real offenses and attacks on the person such as the words braggart, German mint, criminal commander”, claims the prosecutor of Milan Giancarla Serafini who points out as “the exercise of the right of criticism does not authorize the offense of the private sphere of a subject, the denigration “which continues even after the judges of Agrigento have established that the young woman has acted to save lives. Words that do not come from an ordinary man, but from a man of the institutions. The posts of the then minister receive thousands of comments with “very violent threats and terrible words”, his is a “defamation” that occurs “when he was not holding the ministerial office”. For Salvo Tesoriero, lawyer of the civil party, “An insult to the person can never represent a political argument. We are not faced with a bad sentence but a hate speech constructed by a person who exploits his office, a speech of hatred that could never be an expression of the function, a hate speech that spreads for a month “against a girl. On a sentence of the prosecutor on Salvini’s policy, as well as on some expressions of the civil party, the defense of the leader of the Northern League made a sharp reply: “I heard about a hate speech and non-juridical judgments, here he discusses politics. Against Carola there is not a personal attack, but political choices of a then minister. I expect that epithets of this type will no longer be pronounced in this hall “.