Hungarian Police beat up international journalists during use of force against refugees

Hungarian police officers involved with yesterday’s intervention against refugees on the border with Serbia beat up and detained journalists from abroad. One was a reporter for the Slovak newspaper Denník N, which reported the incident today.  

"It all happened when a group of us journalists were watching how the masses of refugees were doing their best to climb the fence to reach the Hungarian side. I aided one family with getting back up off of the ground and then police officers shoved me, began beating me with truncheons, handcuffed me and threw me to the ground," Tímea Becková, a reporter for Denník N, described the police raid.  

According to the paper, Becková has been charged with illegally crossing the border and spent last night at a police station. Hungarian police interrogated other journalists from abroad along with her.

"There was an Australian and a Polish journalist with me. The Pole’s head was bleeding terribly, he lost about a half-liter of blood," she said.

On Wednesday Serbian television station RTS reported that Hungarian police officers equipped with truncheons had beaten up three Serbian journalists who were filming a reportage about the refugee crisis at the border with Hungary. The officers are alleged to have pushed the cameraman up against a wall, beaten his back and head with a truncheon, and broken his camera.  

Police then reportedly intervened in a similar way against a reporter, injuring her hand, and against a sound engineer. All three were taken to a nearby hospital.

Hungarian Police used tear gas and water cannon on Wednesday against hundreds of migrants who broke through the barbed-wire fence on the Serbian border and did their best to reach Hungary. The BBC reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was "shocked" by the intervention and called it "unacceptable".