Hungary has formally asked the European Parliament to lift the immunity of Italian Green MEP Ilaria Salis, who was imprisoned in Hungary for brutally beating up innocent civilians on the streets of Budapest.
The move was announced by Salis herself in a press release on Tuesday, October 22nd. President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola said Hungary’s request had been forwarded to the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, where it will be deliberated. The final decision will come from a vote in the plenary session. The process is expected to take at least several months.
Ilaria Salis, a 40-year-old former teacher, was arrested and imprisoned in Hungary last year for participating in a series of attacks organised by the Hammerbande (Hammer Gang), a German left-wing militant group linked to Antifa. The members of the group surrounded and bludgeoned nine innocent people—who the attackers decided “looked like” neo-Nazis based on their choice of clothing—with telescopic batons and hammers on the streets of Budapest.
Salis was arrested and charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme left-wing organisation. Her case was widely reported in European media, especially in Italy, with left-wing journalists focusing on her alleged “inhumane” treatment in prison, and not on the shocking crimes she committed.
In May this year, she was released from prison and transferred to house arrest in Budapest, and after her election as an MEP, she gained legal immunity and was released.
Since her release, she has continuously attacked the conservative Hungarian government and, during the debate in the European Parliament on the Hungarian EU presidency’s programme earlier in October, had the audacity of calling Hungary a “modern tyranny.” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said it is “absurd that we have to listen to a speech about the rule of law by someone who beat innocent people on the streets of Budapest with batons.”
In her press release on Tuesday, Ilaria Salis wrote that she hopes “that the Parliament chooses to defend the rule of law and human rights without yielding to the arrogance of an illiberal democracy with autocratic tendencies.”
Many Hungarian MEPs from the ruling Fidesz party called her out for her hypocrisy. Enikő Győri tweeted:
Dear Ilaria Salis, you weren’t arrested for your political views, you were arrested and put on trial for brutalizing randomly chosen passerbys on the streets of Hungary. Now you dare to pose as the victim when you are held accountable.
András László wrote:
Traveling to another country with others in order to randomly beat people in the street with iron rods is NOT antifascism. It’s violent crime. You are a disgrace to the European Parliament and to Italy. You are a coward for not taking responsibility and hiding behind your immunity.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács said Ilaria Salis acting like she is some sort of victim “is not only baffling but also utterly disgusting.” He added: “You are no democrat, and you are no martyr. You are a common thug.”
