Italian editors may have done this as a stunt to merely alarm italian readers of what a law may be comming, but the "italian language" wikipedia, even if probably mostly populated by italian citizens, is in no way connected to or obliged to abide by laws of italy, the state. There are probably millions of italian speakers who are not italian citizens, they are affected by this stunt even though they are in no way affected by this silly law.
In my view, this is italian citizens effectively seizing italian language wikipedia to push their particular political interests, which apply only to italy. I also think that the foundation should not allow particular "countries" to effectively seize language editions of the wikipedia and enforce their particular laws on all readers and contributors who happen to speak that language.
The flaw with your argument is that by not stopping it here it'll snowball and affect more systems, more countries etc. This should be stopped now, otherwise France will be next then Germany than US and all of a sudden we'll all move to China.
It might however prevent or deter contributors living in Italy from contributing. And those are, quite obviously, the vast majority of the people contributing to the localized wikipedia.
You seem to suggest that a geolocation-based "blocking" of Wikipedia would have been more effective, but that would mean this appeal wouldn't have reached any of you - including myself, an Italian student in an exchange period abroad.
Besides, I can't really see wikipedia doing geolocation-based blocking of anything. It's just not coherent with the project of a global, free, libre, neutral, universal corpus of knowledge.
In my view, this is italian citizens effectively seizing italian language wikipedia to push their particular political interests, which apply only to italy. I also think that the foundation should not allow particular "countries" to effectively seize language editions of the wikipedia and enforce their particular laws on all readers and contributors who happen to speak that language.