Salvini attacks the Salis case: “If she were convicted she would no longer be able to be a teacher.” Tajani: be careful not to do as with “Zaki”
“You cannot enter a court in a European country in chains in 2024. So the Italian government did well to ask for respect for human rights for anyone even in detention in Italy or Hungary. I hope that Ilaria Salis can prove her innocence because if this were not the case, if she were convicted for episodes of violence and aggression obviously as far as I am concerned, as a minister and as a parent, she would no longer be able to be a primary school teacher with children of 6 or 7 years. So I hope you prove your innocence otherwise everyone pays for what you do.” These are the words of the deputy prime minister and minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini in a video posted on Facebook. The reply from Salis’ father is ready: “Everything is fine but declarations of this type cannot be made. Salvini’s exit seemed out of place to me.” In reality there is more.
On X Salvini also referred to another episode: “The images of Ilaria Salis chained in court are shocking and I hope she can prove innocent. Of course, it is surprising that she was present on the occasion of violent demonstrations, in Budapest as in Monza in 2017 when a Lega gazebo was destroyed. I dare to say that I would not be happy if Salis was my daughter’s teacher.”
Another note from the Northern League taken up by deputy secretary Crippa denounces: “She ended up on trial for having “attacked a Lega gazebo on 18 February 2017 in Monza”. She was later acquitted. Furthermore, there is also an unsuspected article in La Repubblica which headlines an article by Enrico Franceschini: “Hammerbande and the Ilaria Salis case: who are the anti-neo-Nazi activists who use the hammer. The story of an informant” subtitle: “From the roots in the “Antifa” collective to the strategies for targeting individuals or processions in Germany and Hungary in just a few seconds”. The article reads: “The case of Ilaria Salis, the 39-year-old Italian citizen in prison in Hungary for about a year, whose appearance handcuffed and with her feet shackled at a court hearing this week in Budapest sparked protests from the our government, draws attention to the militant group to which Salis is suspected of belonging: Hammerbande, as it is called in German, or “the hammer gang”.
Salvini’s statements have, as expected, sparked a brawl in the opposition which accuses the minister of everything by fomenting the X squads who are using hashtags such as #Salvini_fai_schifo and #SalviniPagliaccio. The fact is that Salvini expressed “obviously as far as I’m concerned, as a minister and as a parent” a thought that many Italians share, a pragmatic thought that if we weren’t in the “reverse world” would find immediate accommodation in even the most misguided minds from ideology. The same article in Repubblica, certainly not a pro-government newspaper, reports the news that Salis: “is suspected of belonging to: Hammerbande, as it is called in German, or “the gang of hammers”.
That is, the suspicion, according to the article, is that Salis is part of a skull-breaking “gang” who goes around with the hammer to take justice into their own hands. And so the minister’s declarations appear in a slightly different light: who would want a teacher of that kind for their children – if convicted? Since in Italy we are constitutionally guaranteed, we say that in our country Salis would be innocent up to the third degree but the fact that she is on trial would mean, for a person of common sense, not wanting her in an elementary school where she would have to transmit very different values to children than those of violence. The profession of a teacher, especially an elementary one, is in fact very delicate and educational. The words of the father who is clearly seeking media visibility and who instead should answer, as a parent and educator, for these suspicions about his daughter sent to trial in Italy (acquitted, as mentioned) and Hungary are also surprising.
It is then right that the government is committed to bringing back this “idealistic” daughter of its at home, despite the serious accusations made against her, but Minister Tajani should also remember “Zaki the ungrateful” who, once (rightly) freed from Egyptian prisons, gave a nice kick to the gums of those who had saved him.