after she was elected as an MEP has spoken of her gratitude to the voters who gave her back her freedom and vowed to continue to fight for the rights of prisoners and against the rise of neofascist groups in Europe.
“I thought of many possible outcomes but what actually happened exceeded my imagination,” she told the Guardian in her first interview with a publication based outside. “I believe that many of those who voted for me did so because they are sincerely concerned about the advance of the far right, and in part wanted to express it by supporting a candidate openly anti-fascist.”
“It was a very tough period, of course, an experience that put me to the test, and I haven’t fully recovered yet,” she said. “The possibility of such a long sentence, completely disproportionate to the accusations, scared me and still scares me a lot. I remember when my parents came to visit me, they wondered if they would still be alive 10 years later.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the leader of the far-right League party, repeatedly criticised Salis and alleged she was part of a group that in 2017 had damaged a gazebo used by the party in Monza. For almost the first year of her detention, however, until she was brought to court in chains, her case was little known in her home country.
She intends to use her position as an MEP to campaign for prisoners’ rights. “I intend to continue the fight for the rights of prisoners in Europe, focusing particularly on prisons in Italy and Italian people detained abroad because those are situations where I can have a greater impact,” she said.