An Italian journalist who ridiculed the small stature of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni online has been ordered by a court to pay €5,000 in damages, she told AFP Friday. 

Giulia Cortese, who is freelance, had called the far-right leader "a little woman" in an October 2021 social media post, adding: "You don't scare me. Furthermore, you are 1.20 metres tall (3.9 feet)."

The comment was a response to Meloni's announcement on Facebook that she was suing Cortese for having earlier posted a falsified photo of the premier sitting in front of a photograph of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. 

Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, was in opposition at the time. 

Contacted by AFP on Friday, Cortese confirmed that the Milan court had ordered her to pay 5,000 euros to Meloni, a civil party in the case, for defamation.

"Italy's government has a serious problem with freedom of expression and journalistic dissent," Cortese wrote on X. 

"This country seems to get closer to (Viktor) Orban's Hungary: these are bad times for independent journalists and opinion leaders."

Cortese told AFP that a separate accusation over the Mussolini comparison was thrown out, as it did not constitute a crime.

Meloni, who took office in October 2022, has a history of suing journalists. 

In the most high-profile case, she successfully took investigative journalist Roberto Saviano to court for defamation.

In December 2020, Saviano -- author of the bestselling book "Gomorrah" about the Naples mafia -- had called her a "bastard" on national television for her hard line on migrants. 

Last October, a court handed Saviano a suspended fine of 1,000 euros in the case. Meloni had sought 75,000 euros in damages. 

In 2021, Meloni also sued two journalists from newspaper "Domani", in a case that is due to begin in November. 

It concerns an article alleging that she tried to use her influence to get a member of her party a job supplying Covid masks to Italy's healthcare system.

Il Messaggero daily reported the height of Meloni as 1.63 metres, or five feet, three inches.