Brussels – Ilaria Salis is free. The Italian professor and activist, fresh from her election to the European Parliament on the Green and Left Alliance list, left in the morning her residence in Budapest, where she had been under house arrest since May 15. “A significant victory for justice and a defeat for repressive far-right leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán,” her new political group in Brussels, the European Left, said
The MEP, who was in jail in Hungary for more than 15 months on charges of assault against some far-right militants, can now return to Italy, where Nicola Fratoianni, the leader of Sinistra Italiana (Italian Left), is waiting for her with open arms and who wanted her to run on his party’s lists at the European elections aiming to free her. “We are waiting for you, Ilaria. Thanks to each and every one of those who, in recent months, have been outraged and not given up on the terrible condition in which Ilaria Salis was held in Orban’s prisons. Now she will be able to defend together with us the civil and social rights of the weakest,” Fratoianni said in a post on X.
The request for the release of Salis, who as an elected official in Brussels now enjoys parliamentary immunity, had been filed by her lawyers immediately after the confirmation of the 176,000 preferences won at the polls and her investiture as an MEP. Already sure to join her in the ranks of the European Left is former Riace mayor Mimmo Lucano. Of the six seats won by Bonelli-Fratoianni, three will be Green, while the sixth remains uncertain.
Although expected, the release of Salis is a surprise because of its timing since the 39-year-old from Milan was awaiting the proclamation and documents certifying her status as an MEP and because yesterday, the Hungarian government hinted that it wanted to obstruct the release as much as possible. In any case, the Orban executive’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, announced that the Hungarian government intends to request the lifting of immunity for Salis. “The competent Hungarian authority should ask the European Parliament to waive immunity” for the Italian teacher, he explained at a press conference.
The government will, therefore, push the Hungarian judiciary to go to the European Parliament, which will hold the fate of its newly elected member in its hands. Should the majority of the European Parliament vote for revocation, “the criminal proceedings may continue during the MEP’s term of office. If not, it may continue at the end of the mandate,” Gulyás concluded.
English version by the Translation Service of WithubGreat news: Ilaria Salis MEP is free!
This is a significant victory for justice and a defeat for repressive far-right leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. pic.twitter.com/WdwcY8f4vD
— The Left in the European Parliament (@Left_EU) June 14, 2024
