A Hungarian camerawoman who was caught tripping and kicking Middle Eastern refugees as they broke through police lines near the Hungarian-Siberian border this week has reportedly been identified, and fired.
The woman’s name is Petra Laszlo, according to Hungarian news site 444.hu, and she was covering Hungary’s refugee crisis when a group of displaced Middle Easterners staged a breakout, crashing through police lines and making a mad dash for a nearby cornfield.
The refugees, many of them fleeing Syria’s civil war, have been desperately seeking asylum in Germany, which has offered to take in as many as 500,000 displaced persons per year.
Lage in #Roeszke #Hungary weiter schlimm – Polizei überfordert – Flüchtlinge durchbrechen Polizeikette – Verletzte! pic.twitter.com/GlMGqGwABb
— Stephan Richter (@RichterSteph) September 8, 2015
The journey to Germany has been difficult, though, as countries like Hungary, which has admitted more than 150,000 refugees in 2015, have been rounding up people and registering them. This means many refugees have been stationed in camps, where they claim they have been mistreated by authorities.
Fearing they will be forced to stay in Hungary, refugees rushed police Tuesday and made a break for the border. During the chaotic scene, Laszlo was recorded kicking and tripping refugees and they rushed past her in a desperate attempt to avoid capture by law enforcement agents.
After footage of the event went viral Tuesday afternoon, the TV journalist was was soon fired from her job at Hungary’s Nemzeti TV.
“An employee of N1TV today showed unacceptable behavior at the Roszke collection point,” a spokesperson for the Hungarian TV station said in a statement. “We have terminated the contract of the camerawoman with immediate effect today.”
The station’s chief editor, Szabolcs Kisberk, told Reuters: “I believe we have done what we had to do in this situation. We don’t understand how this could happen, it is shocking and unacceptable.”
