An Italian judge has ordered a journalist to pay Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni damages of €5000 ($8130) over social media posts poking fun at her height.
The BBC reports that two tweets by Giulia Cortese were defamatory and constituted “body shaming”, a judge found.
Cortese also received a suspended fine of $1950.
The case goes back to 2021 before Meloni became prime minister when Cortese posted a mocked-up image of the far-right politician on X, formerly Twitter,
It depicted her standing in front of a bookshelf on to which a framed photo of World War II Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini had been artificially added.
Meloni responded in a Facebook post, saying the image was of “unique gravity” and that she would be launching legal action.
Later the same day, Cortese said she had deleted the image after realising it was fake, but accused Meloni of sparking a “media pillory” against her.
Cortese also said the Facebook post showed that Melboni was a “little woman”.
She later posted: “You don’t scare me, Giorgia Meloni. After all, you’re only 1.2m tall. I can’t even see you.”
Italian media reports Meloni’s height is 1.63m
Cortese was convicted over the later tweets, but cleared for posting the initial image.
Meloni’s lawyer said she would donate any money she received to charity.
Cortese responded to the verdict on X, saying it reflected a loss of media freedoms.
“Italy’s government has a serious problem with freedom of expression and journalistic dissent,” she wrote.
