Moms in Gödöllő panic over Indian athletes taking photos

In her post, which was originally published in a closed group, but was later shared widely, the woman wrote that she noticed two young men aged between 18 and 25 taking photos of young children at the main square playground on Sunday. She added that the young men, who didn't speak Hungarian weren't only taking pictures of themselves but also of the children. When she went to the playground the next day, the two young men were there again: they loudly said hello to her daughter, waved and took photos of them.

“That's when I yelled at them and said: 'HEY! NO,NO!”

- the mother recalled. After this, her husband joined the surveillance as well, taking pictures of the two young men standing around. The woman warned everyone to "watch out, because there might be more to it than just taking photos" and said she had alerted the police.

The post went viral on social media, with some people even envisaging a lynching. The mood and how uncontrolled Facebook posts work is well illustrated by the following comments (there was hardly any dissent):

• "These are Arab traffickers, the police are useless!"
• "Child kidnappers. I assume they are working to order."
• "If such a thing were to happen to my child, I'd be sure to gut them both. P.s. a dad"
• "Those Fidesz rats are bringing in legal migrants."

The panicked atmosphere continued until the sales manager of the hotel on the town’s main square commented on the post and said:

"The two young men came from India for the World Athletics Championships, they are Olympic and world champions. They wouldn't hurt a fly and are very kind people.

It's not entirely clear whether they really are Olympic and world champions, given that India has one Olympic champion in athletics and no world champion (unless the author of the post was referring to junior medallists). We contacted the hotel's sales manager on the matter, but he was unavailable.

We asked György Gémesi, the mayor of Gödöllő about the matter, who said that the athletes preparing for the World Athletics Championships were staying in the hotel on the main square, and that they had gone to the square to take photos. The main square is monitored by CCTV anyways, but there was no atrocity whatsoever. According to the mayor, the incident was simply an overreaction.

He added that he understands that it's good to be cautious in everything, but it's important to ask questions first, and to not cause panic. Gémesi received the photo and text of the post in the early hours of Tuesday morning from a friend in Pécs (!) who asked him what was going on in Gödöllő. He has since consulted the local police chief and the authority supervising public spaces, and it turns out that basically, nothing happened. He said that taking photos in public places was allowed, and that he himself had also taken photos of children at the fountain before, but that the use of the photos was a different matter.

Gémesi finds the sudden panic especially strange, because there are 300-400 foreign students studying at the university in Gödöllő, and the locals are used to them. The mayor also added that he was not aware of any threats against the athletes.

The Pest County Police Headquarters informed us that the police had received two reports of foreign men photographing women and children in the main square of Gödöllő. The police checked the scene and found no evidence of any offense/crime, but they are still regularly patrolling the area nonetheless.

We have contacted the hotel manager via chat and will update this article as soon as he responds.

As soon as the truth became known, several posts were deleted, but the text of the original post with the pictures continued to spread unabated and at full speed on social media.

If it's a foreigner, they must be dangerous! Or are they?

In the barrage of comments underneath the circulating post, alongside the many horrific images of child abductors, the image of migrant workers has also popped up, and not exactly in a positive light. The growing number of foreign guest workers coming to Hungary recently sparked a fierce conflict in the town of Hajdúszoboszló. In our article about the case, we pointed out that this was a good local example of what is likely to be one of the most divisive issues in Hungary in the next few years. And this current case is proof of that.

In Hajdúszoboszló, locals have been hyping each other up, saying that the foreign workers will rob, rape and kill, but the police have not received a single report of such a thing as of the time of our writing. There was even a rumor that a local couple was attacked by foreign guest workers, but it simply wasn't true. Some argue that the growing xenophobia is the ripened fruit of the last eight years of the Orbán government's communication.