Rather than defending the dignity of
an Italian citizen the League party of Deputy Premier Matteo
Salvini is putting further chains on Ilaria Salis by dragging up
her past, centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) secretary
Elly Schlein said on Wednesday.
"Instead of fighting not to see the dignity of an Italian
citizen trampled underfoot, the League is rummaging through her
past; even before a sentence has been passed it has already
decided that she is guilty, and it is putting more chains around
the wrists and ankles of Ilaria Salis, recalling charges on
which she has already been acquitted," said Schlein.
"In this nostalgia for the Middle Ages in which the presumption
of innocence has disappeared Salvini makes statements of an
unbearable paternalism," she added.
"But if he claims that someone accused of personal injury cannot
be a primary school teacher, we have to ask him how someone
accused of kidnapping can be a minister," concluded Schlein.
Salvini is on trial in Palermo for allegedly kidnapping and
refusing to perform his duty for 147 migrants rescued by Spanish
NGO Open Arms in August 2019 when he was interior minister by
denying them authorisation to disembark.
It was one of several such incidents during his tenure.
Earlier the League said in a statement that Salis, the
39-year-old elementary school teacher and anti-Fascist activist
on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking two Hungarian
neo-Nazis almost a year ago, had been tried for being part of a
group that attacked a party gazebo and assaulted two young women
present in February 2017.
Her lawyers subsequently said that Salis been acquitted of the
charges against her.
On Tuesday her father Roberto denounced a growing campaign to
discredit his daughter's actions.
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