Hungarian camerawoman charged for kicking migrants attempting to flee police.
Hungarian prosecutors have filed charges against a camerawoman who shocked the world when she was filmed kicking migrants attempting to flee police.Petra Laszlo was fired form her job at N1TV, a TV station run by a far-right anti-immigration party, after video footage spread online appearing to show her kicking a girl and a young man.
The prosecutors, who will seek a disorderly conduct conviction, said: 'While filming she kicked a young man in the shin with a swift kick of the sole of her right foot, and also kicked young girl around the knee with her right foot.'
A second video of her appearing to trip a father carrying his crying son has been dismissed, with prosecutors saying she aimed a kick at the pair but it did not land.
Laszlo was directly behind the police officers and filmed migrants as they ran.
There was no evidence of a racially motivated hate crime, they added.
Laszlo was not immediately reachable for comment, but last year she said she felt remorse over what had happened.
Prosecutors said she had not kicked a man carrying a small child, one of the accusations she had faced during last year's online furore.
'Laszlo kicked toward a man carrying a child in his hands, but the kick did not reach the man.
'The man carrying the child still fell, because... one of the policemen tried to catch and restrain him, and he lost his balance as he broke free.'
The man, a soccer coach named Osama Abdul Mohsen, went on to Spain where a sports school offered to find him work.
Her prosecution comes as s political tensions mount over Europe's migration crisis in the region.
Prosecutors described how hundreds of migrants broke through a police cordon and out of a holding area and headed toward Szeged, a nearby city in September last year.
Petra Laszlo (above) worked for Hungarian news site N1TV which is run by the anti-immigration far-right Jobbik party
Soon after the footage surfaced, Laszlo was fired from her job as a camerawoman for Hungarian news site N1TV, which is run by the anti-immigration far-right Jobbik party.
She added: 'It's hard to make good decisions at a time when people are in a panic and many hundreds of people rushing. I'm sorry about what happened... I take responsibility for it.'
'I'm not a heartless, racist children-kicking [camerawoman]. I do not deserve the political witch hunts against me, nor the smears, [or] the death threats... I am truly sorry.'
She wrote: 'As I watch the footage now, it's like I'm not watching myself. I honestly regret what I have done and take responsibility for it.
'Only now could I get myself together enough to be able to write. I'm in a state of shock because of what I did and what has been done to me.
'I was recording with the camera when hundreds of migrants broke through the police cordon, one of them ran into me and I panicked.
'I was afraid as they were rushing toward me and then something snapped in my head. As I had my camera in my hand I couldn't see who was coming at me, my only thought was that I was going to be attacked, and that I had to defend myself,' she said.
She added that as 'a mother I'm particularly sorry that fate had it that a child was running at me, and I wasn't able to sense that.
'It's not easy to make a good decision when you're in a panic.'
Social media twitter users condemned her for this behaviour.
Culled from DailyMailUK
Labels: Human Rights, Hungary, Migrants
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