The minister stressed that the committed violence was not spontaneous but rather a meticulously planned act.Continue reading
Ilaria Salis, a woman accused of being part of an extremist far-left group who attacked people randomly in Budapest last year, is standing as a candidate in the European Parliament elections. The Italian political grouping Greens and Left Alliance (AVS – Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra) confirmed the news on Thursday evening that the woman imprisoned in Hungary has been included on its list.
In a statement, AVS said that it had decided, in agreement with Roberto Salis, the father of Ilaria Salis, to put Ilaria Salis, who is being held in Hungary in conditions which they claim “seriously violate people’s rights,” forward as a candidate. The party alliance stressed that the nomination is intended to guarantee the rights and dignity of a European citizen. AVS wants to launch “a great and generous fight on behalf of Ilaria Salis to ensure that the European Union defends the principles of the rule of law.”
CCTV footage of the vicious attack of which Salis was allegedly a part. Photo via Facebook.
AVS was founded before the last Italian parliamentary elections in 2022, as an alliance of Green Europe (EV) and the Italian Left (SI). It has four members in the upper house in Rome, eleven in the lower house, and one member in the European Parliament, either in factions of other major associations or as an independent.
Nicola Fratoianni, general secretary of the SI and president of the AVS, told Radio Popolare on Thursday evening that Salis is likely to be the leader in the alliance’s northeastern Italian constituency in the June European contest.
To qualify, the party will have to pass the four percent threshold, which it failed to reach in the last Italian parliamentary elections.
Political analyst Lorenzo Pregliasco, co-founder of the polling company Youtrend and political analyst for the right-wing daily Il Giornale, said that Salis’ candidacy would help AVS by raising the association’s profile in the election campaign. In the left-wing daily La Repubblica, international lawyer Marina Castellaneta said that
the nomination alone would not be enough to get Salis out of prison.
She noted that Ilaria would only gain immunity if she was elected.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, responding to reporters at the EU summit in Brussels, stressed that Salis’s nomination “does not change the government’s approach and work” on the case. However, she added that as she had said on several occasions, she believes that “politicizing the issue does not help.”
Right-wing League MEP Susanna Ceccardi called Salis’s nomination a disgrace:
The left is offering an acquittal to a person accused of very serious crimes (…) Ilaria Salis should defend herself in court, not in front of the court.”
Earlier, the left-wing Democratic Party (PD) had raised the possibility of nominating Salis for the European Parliament, but this was eventually ruled out by the party’s secretary general, Elly Schlein. Roberto Salis explained that his daughter’s candidacy is not an escape from the Hungarian court proceedings; on the contrary, it will help her “to conduct the trial in full respect of her rights and the political path she has chosen is definitely in line with her political activity.”
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/AntifaInfo Budapest