Italy’s top story on Friday

News headlines on Friday morning were again dominated by the trial of Ilaria Salis, the Italian antifascist activist held in Hungary, after a Budapest court rejected her request to be placed under house arrest, saying that “circumstances haven’t changed” and “there is still a flight risk”, according to a report from Il Post.

Salis, aged 39, from Milan, has been held in a maximum security prison in Budapest for 13 months on suspicion of having assaulted two far-right militants during commemorations for a World War II Nazi regiment in February 2023 – a charge she has pleaded not guilty to. 

Footage of Salis appearing in court in shackles sparked widespread outrage in Italy in late January, with figures from both sides of the political spectrum protesting against her detention conditions. 

Salis provided accounts of her detention in letters first published by TV broadcaster LA7 in January, saying she had been forced to wear the same clothes “for five weeks” and her bed was infested with bugs.

Salis’s next court hearing is set for May 24th.

Italian government plans limit on number of foreign children in schools

Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara on Thursday said he would “take measures” to ensure that the “majority of pupils in school classes were Italian”, news agency Ansa reported.

His words came after Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called for a cap of “20 percent of foreign children per class”, triggering nationwide debate this week as he insisted most foreign children were unable to speak Italian and that this caused “chaos” in schools.

Valditara voiced his support for Salvini’s stance, claiming such a limit would help foreign children “assimilate into the fundamental values enshrined in the Constitution.”

In the year 2021-2022, only 7.2 percent of Italian schools had a proportion of non-Italian pupils above 30 percent. By contrast, some 18 percent of schools around the country had no foreign pupils at all.

Italian artist injured in ‘blasphemy’ protest in church

An Italian artist accused of blasphemy over an “offensive” painting of Jesus was injured on Thursday by a protester who vandalised his exhibition in a Catholic church, AFP reported.

Saltini’s exhibition “Gratia Plena” at the Church of Saint Ignatius in Carpi, northern Italy, drew protests and 30,000 people signed a petition accusing him of blasphemy, saying one picture showed Jesus “engaged in an obscene sexual act”.

On Thursday morning, the artist was “lightly injured” after confronting a masked man carrying black spray paint and a knife who sought to damage the paintings, a local police spokesman told AFP.

The diocese had previously rejected accusations of blasphemy, hailing Saltini’s works as a rare example of “true contemporary art with a religious subject”.

Lebanese PM mistakes Meloni’s aide for Italian premier 

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati mistook Giorgia Meloni’s personal assistant Patrizia Scurti for the Italian premier ahead of an Italy-Lebanon summit in Beirut, news agency Ansa reported on Thursday.

The incident reportedly took place on Wednesday evening, shortly after the Italian PM’s plane touched down in Beirut airport.

Online videos on Thursday showed Mikati greeting Scurzi with a kiss on both cheeks and a hug before being informed of the mistake by an aide and proceeding to greet the ‘real’ Meloni. 

Meloni attended an official meeting with Mikati later on Wednesday, her office said, with the two leaders said to have discussed efforts to reduce tensions in southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike that killed 16 people.