All acts of violence against journalists are wrong and condemnable according to Minister Gulyás

"I would be happy if the old order were restored, using violence against anyone is not allowed, said Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office, at Thursday's government briefing. The minister was responding to a question from Telex after we asked him what he thought of the fact that on 10 March, the mayor of Csákberény, László Vécsei, used physical force to push two of our colleagues, Judit Presinszky and Nóra Siteri, out of a press conference and event attended by Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén.

Ahead of the event, we asked Zsolt Semjén and local Fidesz candidate Gábor Törő about Vladimir Putin's threats about natural gas supplies and the case of the Ukrainian money transport. Both answered our colleagues' questions, but the local mayor aggressively pushed them out of the community center.

At the government briefing, Gulyás said that he considers violence against journalists to be wrong and that he condemns all acts of violence in general. He added that if a forum is a closed event, this should be communicated publicly, and in this case, no journalists should be allowed in.

He added that, with the election just a month away, he did not see the point of a closed event, as he believed that "any sensible politician knows" that they cannot speak in front of hundreds of people without at least one person recording it. "I hope that violence and shoving people around will not become part of Hungarian public life," the minister concluded.

We have filed a complaint against the mayor for disorderly conduct. Not only are these events unacceptable in themselves, as is all physical violence, but they represent a serious crossing of boundaries in Hungarian public life. Politicians have often tried to avoid journalists' questions in the past, and those in power have been obstructing the work of journalists, including those working at Telex, for years. Until now, however, this has mostly been left to the security forces: on one occasion, police officers led our colleagues away when they tried to ask the prime minister questions, and on another, the TEK (Counter-Terrorism Centre) was sent in to pretend to be checking our camera, so as to prevent our journalists from questioning the Minister of Foreign Affairs.