Italian detained in Hungary: Budapest defends its prisons. Images of Ilaria Salis, 39, with her hands shackled and her feet bound as she appeared in court on Monday, made the front pages of Italy's main newspapers.
The affair sparked a reaction at the highest level of state: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni telephoned her counterpart Viktor Orban, and the Hungarian ambassador was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to a recent Eurostat report, the Central European country is, along with Poland, the country in the European Union (EU) with proportionally the highest number of prisoners.