European elections could give the Italian parliamentary immunity. Roberto Salis asks deputies to get a fair trial for his daughter, accused of attacking neo-Nazis.
Italian Ilaria Salis is running for the European Parliament on the Green and Left list, but cannot campaign. The 39-year-old schoolteacher and anti-fascist activist has been in a Hungarian penitentiary for more than a year, accused of attacking neo-Nazi militants. Roberto Salis told MEPs in Strasbourg that his daughter needs to get a fair trial:
She is locked in a cell 23 hours a day. She is given 1 hour of fresh air and 70 minutes a week of socializing. Obviously, she doesn’t have the opportunity to properly nominate herself, but we have yet to talk about that.
Success in the elections would give Ilaria Salis parliamentary immunity, which, however, the Hungarian judiciary could demand to be revoked. Complaints by relatives about the conditions of detention of the Italian woman are strongly disputed by Anikö Döry, a member of the European Parliament from the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary:
I don’t think the problems and conditions in the facility where she is housed are any worse than in other prisons. But Ilaria definitely wasn’t staying in a castle or a five-star hotel.
The prosecutor’s office asked to punish Ilaria Salis with imprisonment for up to 11 years. Recently, an Italian woman appeared in chains before a Budapest court. She was refused transfer to house arrest either in her homeland, in Italy, or in Hungary.
