Rock band Placebo’s frontman Brian Molko was charged with defamation after calling Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a “fascist Nazi” from the stage in Turin.
The rocker’s taunts occurred way back during Italy’s Sonic Park festival in 2023, when he went on a verbal onslaught during the band’s show. A police complaint was filed at the time and a government investigation over “contempt of the institution” was launched, according to The Metro.
The country’s justice ministry accepted the request from state prosecutors to formally charge Meloni on February 17. Italy’s criminal code prosecutes anyone who supposedly “publicly defames the republic.”
The maximum penalty for defamation in Italy is a three-year prison sentence. However, government sources say Meloni will likely only face a $5,200 fine.
Italy’s law is typical of the serious limits on free speech seen in many European countries.
Just this week, CBS News took heat for embedding itself with a police raiding party in Germany which was sent to arrest German citizens for criticizing the government.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance took Europe to task for abandoning the “shared vales” of free speech and calling the censorship laws in Germany “shocking.”
.@JDVance exposes the irony of countries claiming "misinformation" threatens "democracy" as they cancel elections or undermine their results.
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 14, 2025
"If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't… pic.twitter.com/A8bnHwm8kj
Vance blasted Europe, saying:
For years we’ve been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials, threatening to cancel others, we have to ask if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves because I fundamentally think we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values, we must live them.
Now within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not. And thank God they lost the Cold War.
Still, most European countries have always had strict speech rules and the American concept of freedom of speech as seen in out First Amendment has never really been de rigueur for citizens.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
