The extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) will discuss the immunity case of MEPs Ilaria Salis, Péter Magyar and others on Jan. 23. The meeting will be private, with the public completely excluded, and the European Parliament itself will discuss and vote on the relevant matters later.
The Hungarian authorities have initiated the suspension of the immunity of Péter Magyar, vice-chairman of the TISZA Party and MEP, due to two cases. The first is a phone theft case related to a scandal at a club, and the other is a defamation case.
In addition to the cases of Péter Magyar, JURI is also discussing the possible suspension of the immunity of six other MEPs. One of them is the Italian far-left activist Ilaria Salis, also “requested” by our country, who caused life-threatening injuries in Budapest as a member of an anti-fascist group.
Who are the people whose cases are being heard together with Péter Magyar?
Of the other five affected, three are Polish: Grzegorz Braun, Adam Bielan and Michał Dworczyk. They were “requested” from the EP by Donald Tusk’s globalist government. The other two affected are German MEP Petr Bystron and Lithuanian MEP Petras Gražulis.
Petr Bystron, an AfD politician, had his immunity lifted in his home country in May 2024, as he was a member of the Bundestag before the EP elections. The AfD abstained from the vote in protest. The reason for the request to lift immunity is suspicions of money laundering and bribery. In addition, Bystron is allegedly close to the pro-Russian Voice of Europe portal, and according to the accusation, he received money to serve Russia’s interests in the Bundestag.
Italian citizen Ilaria Salis, who is accused of being a member of the violent Antifa "Hammer gang," has been elected to the EU parliament and now has immunity through her status as an MEP.
This means she will be released from prison in Hungary, where she is currently standing… pic.twitter.com/YXzG7Fq9XM
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 11, 2024Petras Gražulis is the chairman of the Lithuanian right-wing Union for People and Justice (Centrists, Nationalists) party, which is a member of the right-wing Europe of Sovereign Nations parliamentary group (which also includes the AfD and Our Homeland). Gražulis began his career as a participant in the 1987 anti-Soviet demonstrations, and in 1989 he was a founder of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party. However, he was expelled from the party in 2006. In December 2023, he was banned from participating in the national elections because he pressed the voting button instead of the Social Democratic MP sitting next to him in the Lithuanian parliament, which is considered a violation of the constitution in Lithuania. However, Lithuania did not “request” his EP immunity for this reason, but because in 2022, when the country introduced the possibility of civil partnership for gay couples, he said nasty things about LGBTQ people, which can result in a fine, or in extreme cases, up to two years in prison.
Grzegorz Braun is a Polish politician and member of the Confederation (Konfederacja). The Confederation is a five-party alliance, and Braun is the president of the member party, the Confederation of the Polish Crown. He was a member of the Sejm from 2019 to 2024 and has been a member of the European Parliament since last year. He has made several anti-Semitic statements, and in December 2023, he desecrated a Hanukkah menorah, for which the Sejm suspended his immunity, and the Polish authorities are requesting the same from the European Parliament.
Michał Dworczyk is a member of the Fidesz-allied PiS party, which will govern Poland until 2023. He was an advisor to two right-wing Polish prime ministers, and then served as deputy defense minister in the government of Mateusz Morawiecki, later head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery. He was elected to the EP in 2024. Donald Tusk’s government wants the EP to suspend his immunity because Dworczyk is accused of using a private email address for official communications, including communicating about classified documents in this way. Later, he was suspected of deleting several emails, citing a hacker attack, which they wanted to use in the proceedings against him.
Adam Bielan is a member of PiS and is also the vice-president of the right-wing ECR EP faction, and in 2007 he served as vice-president of the entire EP. Bielan was sued for defamation by an influential politician from the Confederation, Przemysław Wipler.
Next to Péter Magyar, the far-left Antifa Ilaria Salis
At the same time as Péter Magyar, the EP’s Legal Affairs Committee is also discussing the case of Italian far-left MP Ilaria Salis, who is accused by Hungarian authorities of attempted assault causing danger to life committed within a criminal organization.
As a reminder, in mid-February 2023, foreign far-left radicals attacked eight passersby in four locations in Budapest, brutally beating them, seriously injuring some of them. The victims were chosen at random. All of them had the “crime” of wearing camouflage clothing, black boots, and jackets.
Members of the approximately twenty-strong, far-left group attacked him from behind five times, in broad daylight, in a vile manner, and nearly beat people to death with iron pipes and vipers in the capital.
According to the official report of the prosecutor’s office, between Feb. 9 and 11, 2023, an Antifa group carried out five street attacks in Budapest, in which a total of nine people were injured. The prosecutor’s office has filed charges against three foreign nationals in this regard, and international arrest warrants have been issued for 14 additional foreigners. According to the indictment, the three defendants and their 14 associates (most of whom are at large) aimed to deter followers of “far-right” movements by causing serious, even life-threatening injuries.
The two German citizens and one Italian citizen (Ilaria Salis) who were prosecuted in Hungary were allegedly members of a far-left organization founded in Leipzig in 2017. The group had already attacked far-right or suspected far-right individuals in Germany several times between 2018 and 2020, and then decided in 2022 to attack Budapest in 2023 ahead of the Day of Honor event. Feb 11 is the “Outbreak” or “Day of Honor,” when mostly European far-right and nationalist groups from different countries come together in Budapest, which celebrates when German and Hungarian troops tried to break out of the Buda Castle District in 1945 against Soviet forces.
In February 2023, far-left, anti-fascist groups also appeared in Budapest, and their members attacked and severely abused several people (who were primarily believed to be far-right because of their military-style clothing) on the street. The Antifa attackers organized their attacks on the darknet to avoid surveillance, and there they planned the acquisition of their equipment, the locations of the attacks, and possible escape routes.
According to the prosecution, the attacks were carefully planned, and they were “worked on” in a pre-agreed division of tasks. The duration of the attacks was determined at 30 seconds, and the person appointed as the controller coordinated the work of the others with pre-agreed passwords. One person monitored the environment while the others beat the people chosen as victims.
The first attack took place on a train at Nyugati Railway Station, the second at Fővám Square, the third and fourth on Feb.10 at Gazdagréti Square and Bank Street, while the fifth attack took place on Feb. 11 at Mikó Street in District 1. Among the victims were Hungarian and foreign citizens.
Ilaria Salis, who was arrested in Hungary for the Budapest manhunt, was elected as a member of the Italian Green-Communist Party in last year’s European Parliament elections. Thus, the far-left Italian has been able to avoid accountability by hiding behind her immunity.
Hungarian MEP @GyoriEniko reminds fellow lawmaker @SalisIlaria that she isn't on trial in Hungary for her political views, but rather for her involvement in attacks that saw seven people targeted by a notorious "hammer gang" of ultra-violent Antifa members.
The victims, who were… pic.twitter.com/XNP6y06pY2
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 22, 2024Ilaria Salis, from Brussels, is urging and defending her colleagues from the protection of her immunity. Among other things, she called for “not a single anti-fascist to be extradited to Hungary.” But she also does not hold back when she says that “everyone has highlighted the urgency of a new anti-fascism that meets the challenges of the present. This is a social and political challenge. A European, internationalist challenge. A challenge that we must overcome with ambition, intelligence and determination. Let solidarity be the north star that guides our path.”
Moreover, the anti-fascist leader is not only trying to keep Hungary in check, which he also proves with another statement: “We have listened to the lawyers of Gino, who is currently detained in Paris, and we hope that France will give a negative response to the extradition request by refusing to cooperate with Hungary.”
