HUNGARY - REFUGEES AND REPORTERS MEET SATAN ON THE ROAD FROM DAMASCUS

We have all watched the horror the heartbreaking tragedy of weeping children being crushed in the throng of refugees escaping from Syria. No food, no water, no toilets, no place to breathe. Crushed. Terrified.

But adding to the suffering, they come upon HUNGARY, where razor wire fences threaten to slice life and limb, and Hungarian police ruthlessly gas and thrash men, women and little children with heavy batons. 

Protecting Hungary from the invaders? We can easily understand that the tsunami of human flesh presents a shocking threat to all of free Europe, but armoured police wielding bats, mercilessly beating terrified little children reveals a Nazi temperament that must be a warning to all free people everywhere. 

Hungary doesn't want the world to know what they are doing. But we can see. We can read. We know.

Remember Hungary. Remember Hungary.

Phyllis Carter

More information has come to light about journalists being ill-treated by Hungarian police while covering the refugees crisis on the country's border with Serbia.

 

It appears, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), that at least seven journalists were beaten by police, four of whom were detained or questioned.

 

The assaults occurred when Syrian refugees streamed past police to enter Hungary at the Horgoš-Röszke border crossing.

 

Jovana Djurović, from Radio Television Serbia, said police attacked her along with the station's cameraman, Vladan Hadži Mijailović, and sound engineer Miroslav Đurašinović, and all three required medical treatment.

Djurović, with a bandaged arm, later gave a TV interview in which she described the attack, saying that they told police they were journalists.

Jacek Tacik, a reporter for Poland's public broadcaster TVP, was struck in the head with a baton by police and detained for 13 hours on the accusation that he had crossed the border illegally.

Tímea Beck, a reporter for the Slovakian daily paper, Denník N, said police struck her with batons and handcuffed her after she tried to help a family of refugees. She was detained by police and questioned before being released hours later.

Australian photographer Warren Richardson was kicked in the head and chest by police. Swedish photographer Meli Petersson Ellafi, who works for Swedish newspaper Expressen, was knocked to the ground.

An Associated Press cameramen, Luca Muzi, said he identified himself to police as an AP journalist but was forced to delete footage that showed a police dog knocking down a Syrian refugee.

Hungarian police issued a statement - reported by AP - in which it "categorically" denied reports that its officers had beaten journalists. And Hungary's foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto, said police neither threatened nor obstructed journalists.

The CPJ's Europe and central Asia programme coordinator, Nina Ognianova, said: "We are appalled by the police violence against journalists covering this world story. The Hungarian government must make a clear and unequivocal statement that it will not tolerate such behaviour."

theguardian.com