False Report On Refugees Stirs Tension

  • 6 May 2016 9:00 AM
False Report On Refugees Stirs Tension
Prime Minister’s Office leader János Lázár told reporters yesterday afternoon that teenage girls had been molested and harassed by migrants in Körmend, before it turned out that the story was false. A report posted on the ATV website on Thursday morning said migrants in the newly opened detention centre in Körmend had smashed the window of a gymnasium through which they had been watching teenage girls playing handball on Wednesday.

ATV quoted local sports club president András Faragó as saying that the training session had to be interrupted and the girls taken to safety after migrants broke the window.

Numerous other outlets picked up on the story, reporting it as if it were true.

Lázár said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán asked Interior Minister Sándor Pintér to take immediate steps and that the cabinet would contact Körmend mayor István Bebes.

However, Vas county police chief János Tiborcz called a press conference to announce that nothing in the report was true, other than that a window had been broken.

He said police had no reports of aggressive behaviour by migrants, no children had been evacuated, and no-one saw how the window had been broken.

Moreover, he said, the window was cracked in several places and may not have been broken by anyone.

The initial report was unfounded and only served to stir up tension, he added.

Source: Hungary Around the Clock

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