‘Orbán has already condemned me’: Italian MEP on Hungary’s effort to jail her again

Ilaria Salis says government of Viktor Orbán has been ‘embarrassed’ by her election and parliamentary immunity

As the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, finished a speech to the European parliament, the Italian MEP Ilaria Salis rose from her seat and with about a dozen other leftwing colleagues belted out the anti-fascist anthem Bella Ciao.

Until May, Salis had been held in pre-trial detention in a Hungarian prison following her arrest on charges of assault in February last year at a counter-protest to a neo-Nazi rally in Budapest. She was then freed and allowed to return to Italy in June, after her election that month to the European parliament.