"It's strange to see Ilaria Salis sitting in the European Parliament. But it's an Italian issue and if you like to delegate this type of person, it's your business."
These are the words spoken by Hungarian President Viktor Orban regarding the Salis case, on the sidelines of the Thea Workshop in Cernobbio, answering journalists' questions.
"From Hungary's point of view," added the leader of Budapest, "it is more than surprising: coming to Hungary in an organized way and committing acts of violence against citizens walking down the street and then being elected in Brussels is in the Italian style, not Hungarian."
And again: according to Orban, what the 39-year-old Italian woman, who remained in Hungarian prisons for over a year accused of attacking two far-right activists, did "is a crime, even if we cannot prosecute her now because parliament will probably grant her immunity."
The response of Ilaria Salis, who was freed after her election to the European Parliament among the ranks of the Italian Left, was not long in coming: "I am not surprised that Orban finds it unacceptable that tens of thousands of Italians opposed his revenge against anti-fascists by electing me to the European Parliament. For him and his fascist associates in Hungary and around the world, true democracy is simply something intolerable," she wrote on social media.
«Listen to how the tyrant of the so-called illiberal democracy speaks, observe his contempt for
the rule of law and the principle of presumption of innocence", added Salis.
(Online Union)
