A photo of left-wing activist Ilaria Salis, who was imprisoned in Budapest and chained in court, appears on an election poster for the EU elections of the Italian left-wing party “Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra” (European Union Alliance). Greens and Left/AVS). The 39-year-old primary school teacher, who is on trial in connection with an attack on two neo-Nazis in Budapest last year, is AVS’s main candidate in a northern Italian constituency.
“Is this the Europe we want?” is on the party’s election poster. “Ilaria Salis is an Italian citizen who has been imprisoned in Budapest Prison since February 2023 under inhumane conditions that violate the fundamental rights of every human being.
We must do our part to free Ilaria from unjust imprisonment and guarantee her a fair trial to restore the rule of law across the European Union,” the election poster said.
Leftists are calling on people to vote
The party called on voters to elect Salis and the AVS in all constituencies to change the situation in the EU. To get Salis into the EU Parliament, a high turnout is needed, because the four percent threshold must be exceeded.
In January, a trial against the northern Italian woman began in Budapest, during which she was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs and ankle shackles. This caused an uproar in Italy. The woman faces eleven years in prison. Her father had reported several times about the allegedly inhumane conditions in which his daughter was being held in a prison in Budapest.
The teacher is said to belong to the “Hammer Gang”.
The Italian teacher describes herself as an anti-fascist. She is accused of, together with other participants from the left-wing scene, violently attacking a group of right-wing extremists in February last year who wanted to commemorate the year 1945 during an action by the Waffen-SS and Hungarian soldiers. According to authorities, nine people were injured, six of them seriously. The teacher has pleaded not guilty.
Salis and a German couple are said to belong to the ‘Hammergange’ group around the German left-wing extremist Lina E., who has attacked and injured suspected neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists in the past. Some of the German activists were convicted as a result.
Meloni wants to campaign for a homecoming
The Italian government in Hungary had campaigned to place Salis under house arrest. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has good relations with her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán, stressed that the Milanese’s candidacy for the EU elections taking place in Italy on June 8 and 9 does not change the government’s efforts to return to Salis . “Politicizing the matter will not help,” Meloni emphasized. The government parties criticized Salis’ candidacy for the EU Parliament.
Source: Krone
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