Orban, attack on Ilaria Salis: “She hits and gets elected, Italian style…”

Ilaria Salis “it’s an Italian issue, if you like to delegate this type of people it’s your business”. This is the attack of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, questioned on the sidelines of the Cernobbio Forum on the election of Ilaria Salis to the European Parliament. Salis is on trial in Hungary for the attack on a neo-Nazi. “From the Hungarian point of view it is more than surprising: to come to Hungary in an organized way and commit acts of violence against citizens walking in the street and then be elected to the European Parliament it’s in the Italian style. Not Hungarian,” says Orban. “It is a crime,” Orban emphasizes. “Although we cannot prosecute her now because the Parliament will probably grant her immunity.”

To the Hungarian Prime Minister, Angelo Bonelli and Nicola Fratoianni, of the Green and Left Alliance, who have nominated Ilaria Salis in the 2024 European elections, reply. “With regard to the recent statements by Hungarian President Viktor Orban on the election of Ilaria Salis to the European Parliament, it is necessary to reiterate some fundamental points. In Italy, as in all democracies, sentences are up to judges, not politicians. Ilaria Salis has not been convicted, therefore Orban’s insinuations are unfounded”, they say.

“We understand that for Orban, who controls the judiciary in Hungary, the separation of powers may be difficult to accept. Perhaps the ‘Hungarian style’ he is referring to is precisely this: political interference in justice. This is neither the style of Italy nor of the European Parliament, which remain bastions of democracy and the rule of law.”

“After all, it is her friend Giorgia Meloni who has had a person convicted of corruption elected to Europe and a person convicted of embezzlement elected to the Italian parliament. That Orban, an enemy of Europe and a friend of Putin, comes to give us lessons in legality is ridiculous. His hatred towards Ilaria Salis, elected to the European parliament by Italian citizens, and his final judgment of guilt without a shred of decent justice, confirms the illiberal and unacceptable nature of that regime that humiliates the Hungarian people and offends the basic values ​​of the EU. President Meloni and her government should once and for all deeply review all relations with this unspeakable associate of theirs”.