ROME (AP) — Italy has ramped up its protests over the treatment of an Italian antifascist being held in a Hungarian jail, after images of her appearing chained and shackled at a Budapest court hearing this week sparked outrage here.
Ilaria Salis was arrested in Budapest last year and is suspected of being involved in assaults against participants in Hungary’s Day of Honor commemorations. Each Feb. 11, far-right activists commemorate the failed attempt by Nazi and allied Hungarian soldiers to break out of Budapest during the Red Army’s siege of the city in 1945.
On Wednesday, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni spoke about Salis’ detention in a phone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Orban’s press chief Bertalan Havasi told local news site telex.hu.
Earlier in the week, the Italian Foreign Ministry summoned the Hungarian deputy ambassador to formally protest, after Salis appeared in court with her wrists and ankles shackled, and with chains limiting her movement.
In a statement, the ministry recalled European and international law calling for the need to respect the dignity of prisoners “including the way in which defendants are transferred to court and the guarantees of a fair trial.”
Specifically, the foreign ministry requested alternatives to pre-trial detention, such as house arrest, and called for the indictment to be translated into Italian and for Salis’ attorneys to have access to a video of the alleged incidents so she can mount a defense.
The case, however, is delicate for the far-right-led government of Meloni, who has forged friendly ties with Orban.
Senate President Ignazio La Russa, who is a member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, said that Italian law “prohibits inmates from being exhibited with handcuffs and in conditions of humiliation, whereas this isn’t the case in Hungary.”
In comments to RAI, La Russa called for the government to intervene further, given the need “to not humiliate the inmate and respect the dignity of the person even when detained for serious crimes.”
Hungarian prosecutors have requested 11 years in prison if Salis is convicted.
Even before this week’s courtroom images made front pages in Italian newspapers, Salis’ case and her prison conditions had been raised at the European Parliament by left-leaning lawmakers, following news reports that she was being bound by the neck in a cell with mice and roaches.
“The state of Hungarian prisons has been documented and criticized by the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture,” noted the request for EU intervention by Italian lawmakers from the Socialists & Democrats alliance.