Swedish police in the city of Uppsala detained a reporter from the Hungarian television station HÍRTV this week for two hours after he filmed a report from in front of a local police station.
Reporter Zoltán Bugnyár was covering a recent mass stabbing incident that saw eight people injured by an Afghan migrant in the municipality of Vetlanda on Wednesday when uniformed police approached him.
“Although our correspondent showed no resistance and presented his press card, and stated that he was cooperating with the authorities and he would leave the scene, policemen did not allow him to leave. He was taken to the police building, led into the interrogation room, where he was not allowed to make phone calls. He was detained for two hours,” a spokeswoman for the broadcaster told Breitbart News.
The spokeswoman noted that Bugnyár was unaware that Swedish law forbids the filming of “protected buildings” such a police stations.
“He was not informed of what specific law would prohibit that. In addition, the police wanted him to make a testimony in Swedish.”
“Although Mr Bugnyár speaks Swedish, he would not have felt comfortable communicating in Swedish in a criminal case, so he asked for an interpreter on the telephone. Although this is legally granted, the interpreter was not provided for him,” the spokeswoman said.
Bugnyár was also denied any documentation of his detention and interrogation, and both his camera and phone were seized by the Swedish police.
“The Swedish authorities’ proceedings are outrageous because police action was taken against a journalist when he was working, and he was doing his job without any bad intentions. Our position in HÍRTV is the following: the police action was disproportionate and unnecessary, which is unacceptable,” the Hungarian broadcaster said.
The incident comes after several conflicts between Sweden and Hungary in recent years, such as in 2018 when Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto summoned the Swedish ambassador in Budapest over comments made by Sweden’s then-Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, which the Hungarian saw as an “attack on Hungary by the pro-immigration Swedish government.
The following year another row erupted between the two EU member-states after Swedish Minister of Social Security Annika Strandhäll indirectly invoked comparisons to the German Nazi regime when referring to Hungary’s pro-family policies.
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