‘Hammer Girl’ MEP Dodges Accusations and Attacks Hungary at Livestreamed Presser

Far-left Italian MEP Ilaria Salis, known in the press as the ‘hammer girl,’ appeared on Wednesday, September 24th, at a press conference in the European Parliament, accompanied by The Left’s co-president, German MEP Martin Schirdewan, to celebrate her—for now— untouched parliamentary immunity and denounce what she described as “political persecution” by Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary.

The meeting, officially meant to provide information about the decision of the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) not to recommend lifting her immunity, was in fact a political manifesto against the Hungarian head of government and in defense of “democracy in Europe.” 

By contrast, little explanation was offered regarding the concrete charges against the MEP, who was arrested in Budapest in 2023 and spent fifteen months in pre-trial detention, accused of taking part in violent attacks linked to the extremist Hammerbande (Hammer Gang), an Antifa-inspired group. The JURI committee had already postponed voting on her immunity three times before finally holding the vote on Tuesday.

Salis, who now holds a seat in the European Parliament for Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance, insisted that her case “is not a normal judicial proceeding, but a political set-up.” According to her account, she traveled to Budapest to join an antifascist counter-demonstration and was arrested arbitrarily.

“Out of nowhere, some police officers showed up in a taxi, took me away, and kept me for 15 months without real evidence,” she told reporters. “What is at stake is not my person, but democracy in Europe and the danger posed by Orbán’s regime.”

According to Salis, protecting her parliamentary immunity “does not mean evading justice, but ensuring that I am not subjected to a show trial in a country without guarantees.” She added: “If any court has to try me, that court must be in Italy, where I can have a fair trial.”

The press event made clear that neither Salis nor her colleagues from The Left wanted to elaborate on the facts under investigation. Questions posed by reporters about the victims of the Budapest assaults and about the alleged membership of the MEP in the Hammerbande were largely left unanswered.

The Hungarian judicial file maintains that members of the group attacked nine people on the streets of Budapest because they “looked like” far-right sympathizers based on their clothing. One of the injured, a 61-year-old security guard, suffered a fractured skull and partial facial paralysis.

When asked about the concrete charges, Salis merely reiterated that “the narrative promoted by Orbán’s government is completely false” and that her case is “an example of ideological persecution against those who oppose an authoritarian system.”

The Left’s co-president, Martin Schirdewan, reinforced that same political message, focusing his remarks on criticism of Budapest. “The JURI committee has sent a clear signal that Europe must not yield to an autocrat. Defending Ilaria’s immunity is defending the rule of law throughout the Union,” he declared.

Schirdewan called the statements of Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács “unacceptable,” after Kovács posted on social media the coordinates of a prison in northern Hungary as a warning to Salis. “We are talking about an EU member state in which political power openly threatens members of this Parliament. That is intolerable,” Schirdewan declared.

From Budapest, Viktor Orbán’s government responded strongly on Tuesday. The prime minister’s political director, Balázs Orbán, said the parliamentary committee’s decision “demonstrates that the compass of the European Parliament is not justice, but political loyalty.”

“This is not about one particular person, but about the honor of this institution. The Parliament has decided to protect its ideological allies instead of defending justice and the security of European citizens,” he said in a statement.

Other conservative Hungarian MEPs accused Salis of “posing as a victim” when in fact “the real victims are the citizens beaten in the streets.” Conservative MEP Enikő Győri published a photograph of one of the bloodied victims, claiming that “the [surveillance] cameras recorded everything.”

The JURI committee’s rejection of lifting Salis’s immunity was approved by 13 votes to 12, a narrow result that highlights the division within the European Parliament. The process is not over: the plenary in Strasbourg will take the final decision on Salis on October 7th.