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Ilaria Salis
Italian politician, activist, writer and teacher From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ilaria Salis (born 17 June 1984) is an Italian politician, activist, writer and teacher. She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2024 for the Green and Left Alliance.
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Personal life
Salis was born on 17 June 1984 and grew up in Monza, Italy.[1] She received a undergraduate degree in history at the University of Milan, graduating in December 2005.[1] After completing her undergraduate degree, she worked as a primary school teacher.[1] In 2021 she obtained a Master's degree in philology, literature and history of antiquity from the University of Milan.[1]
Arrest and detention
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On 11 February 2023, Salis was arrested in Hungary, after alleged assaults on neo-Nazis at a far-right event in Budapest.[2][3] She was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme left-wing organization.[4] She denied the charges and the alleged victims of the attacks did not file reports with police.[3][4]
According to media reports, Salis suffered numerous violations of her fundamental rights during her incarceration, deprived of access to basic hygiene products, including during her period, forced to wear soiled clothing, suffering from malnutrition, deprived of basic medical care, and prevented from communicating with her family for more than six months,[5] subjected to more than a month of solitary confinement, and detained in a cell infested with insects.[6] She was also subjected to interrogations without a lawyer or translator[6] and was shackled at the ankles in a Hungarian court in 2024.[7] Her legal team was repeatedly denied access to the case file, while Hungarian government officials publicly portrayed her as guilty. During the hearings, neo-Nazi activists in paramilitary uniforms intimidated those suspected of supporting her.[6]
Amid rising public outrage in her home country, the Italian government protested the shackling of Salis with chains around her hand and feet for her trial appearance.[4][8] On 19 December 2023, seven Italian MEPs with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats accused the Hungarian government of holding her "bound by the neck in a cell with mice and cockroaches" and argued that the "injuries of the two assaulted individuals who reported her were only minor".[9] Salis wrote that she spent "23 hours out of 24 in a completely closed cell".[4]
In May 2024, shortly before the European elections, she was released from prison and transferred to house arrest in Budapest.[4][10]
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Election to the European Parliament
In June 2024, Salis was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Green and Left Alliance, obtaining more than 170,000 votes.[11][3] As a MEP, she gained legal immunity and was released from house arrest, finally returning to Italy.[3]
She plans to leverage her role to advocate for the rights of incarcerated individuals, address the housing shortage, and tackle the issue of excessive rental costs.[12]
In October 2024, Hungarian prosecutors requested that the European Parliament lift her immunity.[13] The European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee rejected the request in September 2025, stating that she would not get a fair trial.[13]
In popular culture
In January 2024, Zerocalcare dedicated to Ilaria Salis his graphic novel "At the bottom of the well. A story of Nazis, prison and responsibility", initially published in the weekly Internazionale,[14] followed by other update strips in the following issues.[15][16] In the following June, Zerocalcare's comics on the Salis case were collected and published together with some unpublished ones in the volume This night will not be short.[17]
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Works
- I. Salis, Ivan Bonnin, Vipera, 2025 (autobiography) (in Italian)
References
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