We filed a complaint and pressed charges because police were sent to prevent our colleagues from questioning the Foreign Minister

On 23 May, the local mayor, who is also the MP of the region, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó held a public forum in Kalocsa. Our journalists Zsolt Sarkadi and Júlia Halász went to the forum to report on it and to ask the Foreign Minister some questions about the Russian cyber attack. The event was publicized in the local media, our colleagues registered on the spot, but were ultimately barred from entering the event without explanation. After the forum, a narrow lane in the parking lot, alongside the wall – from where our colleagues could have addressed questions to the departing minister – was suddenly declared an operational area, and then, with the obvious intention of preventing our colleagues from doing their job, the police asked them to present their IDs and then unexpectedly insisted on inspecting their camera’s serial number.

We have taken legal action both against our colleagues' exclusion from the forum and against the police measures aimed at obstructing them in their work.

The partially public forum

It is not difficult to see that a publicly announced campaign event in the run-up to the elections, with a minister present, is an extremely important event of public interest – with fresh information on the Russian hacker attack having surfaced right before on top of it. Thus, excluding a selected press outlet from it without any explanation is not right. Additionally, the law does not recognise the concept of a public event being only partially public (which is what our colleagues were given as an explanation-TN).

In our view, the event in Kalocsa was an election rally, and by excluding us from it, the organizers committed the offense of abuse of the right of assembly and also restricted our right to the freedom of the press and freedom of expression. We have therefore filed a complaint for the offense of abuse of the right of assembly, since anyone who, as the organizer of the meeting, excludes a person who claims to be a journalist from the meeting is committing an offense.

The camera that “might be wanted"

After being expelled from the forum, our colleagues were subjected to police action, very clearly with the intention of preventing them from questioning the minister. Police officers suddenly pointed to the area next to a wall where our colleagues were standing, and announced that it was an area of operation and that they had to leave, after which they asked for their IDs. What's more, a captain of the TEK (Terrorelhárítási Központ – Counter Terrorism Centre) suddenly appeared and instructed the police to check the serial number of our camera (which was being used at that moment too) to make sure it's not stolen. Once again, the intention was extremely obvious here as well: to prevent our colleague from filming in the meantime. As soon as the minister left, the measures suddenly became devoid of purpose, the IDs were returned and we will never know if our camera is wanted.

With the help of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, our colleagues lodged a formal complaint against the police. In our opinion, the police officers who took action did so without any real justification, abusing their powers, and with the sole intention of preventing our colleagues from working.

Asking for our colleagues' ID was in itself unlawful and without legal basis, and it is also clear that it was done with the intention of preventing them from doing their job.

In the same way, the checking of the serial number of the video camera used by our colleague Julia Halász was also carried out without legal basis and unlawfully, as it is clearly unreasonable to assume that the crew of a national online news site would use a camera that is suspected of having been stolen. The purpose was clearly to prevent her from using the camera while the minister was leaving.

Hungarian police and the TEK say they are not the ones who have to answer

The whole series of events that took place on 23 May raised a number of relevant questions about the relationship between the police and the TEK. We contacted both after the incident and sent several letters, but we have not received a reply from either of them in the last month.

Among other things, we wanted to know what justified declaring the area an operational zone, who made that decision and on what basis, was there anyone or anything that constituted a threat, and since when are journalists doing their job a threat? We also asked how common it is to check the serial number of a verified journalist's camera while a report is being filmed.

Did they check the IDs of any of the photographers, videographers or journalists who went into the forum and were in the immediate proximity of the Foreign Minister, and were they checking the serial numbers of any of the photographers' or videographers' equipment who actually entered the event? We also asked both organizations how many instances there had been where the serial number of a journalist's camera had been randomly checked and found to be stolen. And finally: what indication was there that our journalist colleagues might be working with a stolen camera?

And, of course, we also asked both whether they had found anything to be out of place, since it was clear that the ID check and the serial number check became completely irrelevant as soon as the minister had left the scene.

Not a single one of our questions was answered in the past month, with the police simply passing our questions on to the TEK. This is one of the reasons why we have decided to take legal action: we do not want to accept it as a given that journalists are excluded from public events and that the police are used to try to keep the press away from those in power without justification, just as we do not want to accept it as a given that obvious violations of the law are left without answers and consequences.