Revocation of parliamentary immunity: what were the risks for Ilaria Salis?

The European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee will meet today to decide whether to lift the parliamentary immunity of AVS MEP Ilaria Salis. This marks a crucial step in assessing the state of democracy and civil liberties within the European Union. Salis was elected in the last elections with hundreds of thousands of votes.

Her candidacy followed the outrage over her detention, but above all, the conditions to which she was subjected. The images of Ilaria chained and dragged into the courtroom in Budapest are still fresh in our minds. However, the process of revoking her immunity appears to be much more complex and uneven than one might think. As often happens in such cases (think of the Tortora case forty years ago), public opinion is far from united. Vicious conspiracy theorists are thriving on both the right and the left, attempting to fill their political vacuum with baseless, albeit inferior, populist proclamations. While the right is emphasizing Ilaria Salis's "subversive " activities , the left is rife with accusations that she is an ambush, even paid for by the powers that be. She is attempting to sabotage Viktor Orban's supposed " people's" government .

For our part, we would like to step aside from this din and express our full support for Ilaria Salis, advocating for the defense of civil liberties and the reaffirmation of anti-fascist principles. Hungary's prisons and the entire penal system have long been under scrutiny by international organizations for their lack of respect for the rights of defendants and detainees. Images of the inhumane treatment to which Ilaria was subjected, and the conditions of her detention, have been extensively documented by her lawyers, as well as photographed and videotaped. Handing her over to Hungarian justice would contradict the principles of freedom that the EU proclaims as its foundations. Ilaria Salis is an Italian citizen and would have every right to face criminal charges in her own country, or at least serve her sentence there.

Moreover, the crime she is accused of carries a lenient, if not entirely negligible, sentence in Italy. In Hungary , the penalty is up to 14 years in prison. This is an aspect worth highlighting, as it highlights the imbalance between Italian and Hungarian legislation. The Italian government's indifference toward the Ilaria Salis case would be in stark contrast to the sovereignist proclamations the current government flaunts daily. The prime minister took a personal interest in having Chico Forti returned to Italy to serve his sentence, even going to meet him at the airport. For over a year, she has been trying to have former Red Brigades member Leonardo Bertulazzi extradited from Argentina . To ignore Ilaria Salis's Italianness and acknowledge that of the aforementioned would smack of iniquity. Or of political calculation. But it would have nothing to do with respect for the law and civil rights. The second reason concerns anti-fascism. Ilaria Salis was arrested following a fight with far-right activists , whose gathering had been authorized by the Orban government. She was participating in an international demonstration, without using any weapons or blunt instruments, and defended herself from an attack.

Beyond the dynamics of events, what interests us is the principle. Contemporary European democracies were formed on the ruins of a world war unleashed by Nazi-fascism. For a government of a European Union member state to forget this, practicing and promoting ideologies and practices that run counter to it, starting with xenophobia and homophobia, seeking to erase the past, is a serious matter that must be addressed. And it doesn't matter how much welfare Orban distributes. Especially if he defines it on the four pillars of God, Country, Family, and Work. Ilaria Salis risks going back to prison and facing trial for opposing all this. This must not happen. Courage, Ilaria! We are with you.

FROM

Vincenzo Scalia