Italian right-wing government persecutes anti-mafia author

This 28 May 2016 video says about itself:

‘I’ve lived with death threats for 10 years’: Roberto Saviano – BBC News

Speaking out about the mafia can come at a price and for writer Roberto Saviano that has meant 10 years living under police protection. In a book published in 2006, he exposed the activities of the Camorra, a mafia organisation based in Naples, described as Italy’s most bloody and ruthless criminal group. Matthew Price spoke to Mr Saviano, for the Victoria Derbyshire programme, about living with a death threat from the mafia.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Gomorra author Saviano sued after denunciation by Lega minister

The public prosecutor in Rome prosecutes Roberto Saviano, the writer of the bestseller Gomorrah, for defamation and slander. Minister Salvini of the Interior, also leader of the right-wing … Lega [party], had filed a complaint against him.

Saviano is a fierce critic of the Italian government and in particular of the Lega. In the media and on Twitter and Facebook, he regularly criticizes fiercely Salvini’s harsh migration policy. The writer also denounces the, in his eyes, dubious Lega financial sponsors.

The tweet that prompted Salvini to report the writer dates from more than a month ago, when the dead bodies of a woman and a child were found in the sea near the Italian coast. “What joy do you derive from the death of innocent children at sea?” tweeted Saviano. “The hatred that you have sown will turn against you.”

Nickname of the mafia

Saviano also called Salvini the “minister of Mala Vita”, which is one of the mafia‘s nicknames. The Lega minister has already threatened to stop the police protection that the writer receives because of death threats from the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra.

These threats came after the publication of the novel Gomorrah in 2006. The book is a non-fiction work about the Neapolitan mafia. Later on, a TV series was also made based on it.