Ilaria Salis was checked: "An hour of questions about the demonstration, then no report."
"We're now in a state of emergency," the MEP denounces. The automatic action was taken after the Schengen country Germany reported it.Many questions were asked at her hotel room door, many about yesterday's demonstration, but in the end, no report was issued: the investigation lasted an hour. MEP Ilaria Salis recounts the unexpected police visit yesterday morning to a Roman hotel near Termini Station, before the "No Kings" demonstration, which was scheduled to take place in the capital that afternoon. The investigation, according to those who were subjected to it, violated her MEP immunity, which, in fact, would be governed in this case by Italian law.
Parliamentary sources emphasize that even a simple check, such as a verbal inspection, does not provide immunity. The situation is obviously aggravated by the coincidence of the Rome march and the opposition's fears about the implementation of the new security decree. Salis herself makes this connection: "They asked me a whole series of questions, regarding my arrival in Rome, when I would arrive, how I would get there... But also questions about the demonstration. Whether I intended to attend the 'No Kings' demonstration, whether I even had any objects dangerous for the demonstration."
Another detail that has raised many questions among the opposition is the lack of notification of what happened in the corridors of the Roman hotel . "The inspection lasted about an hour and then it was finally over, but they didn't give me a report," the AVS MEP assured. "Around 7:30," she added, speaking from the Rome demonstration, "I was awakened by the police in the room where I was. They knocked on the door, called my name, said they were the police, and asked me to open the door. I opened it, and they asked me for my ID, which I gave them. I also informed them that I'm an MEP. They didn't explain the reason for the visit; they simply said it was for an investigation."
The motives behind this certainly unusual check for a parliamentarian remain unclear. According to police sources, it would be an automatic action following a Schengen country like Germany's notification. Berlin has not explained the genesis of this warning to Italy, but according to Salis, it was "the result of the Security Decree." According to some German investigators, the reason for the alert lies in the closeness of Italian politicians to German anti-fascist and anti-war groups, which have also been implicated in attacks on far-right figures.
It cannot therefore be ruled out that the Schengen alert was entered into the database for this reason. The "Hammerbands" gang, in particular, has reportedly been implicated in several proceedings in Germany and Hungary following attacks and public disturbances. This appears to be essentially the same group associated with Salis by Hungarian prosecutors, who had indicted her in Budapest prison three years ago and sentenced her to prison.
(Unioneonline)