Petra Laszlo, the Hungarian camerawoman fired by N1TV after she kicked and tripped refugees, has apologized for “what happened.”
Laslo sent an open letter to the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, BuzzFeed reported.
“I sincerely regret what happened,” Laszlo wrote, according to a Google Translate of her letter. “In fact I am in shock from what they did and what they did to me.”
Laszlo said she was “scared” as the “hundreds” of refugees were running and thought she “was attacked and I have to protect myself.” Videos of Laszlo show her actions as refugees fled police.
“It’s hard to make good decisions at a time when people are in a panic,” she wrote in part, adding that “I’m sorry about what happened,” she offers her “sincere regret” and says she takes “responsibility for it.”
“I’m not heartless, racist children-kicking cameraman,” she went on. She said she does “not deserve…the political witch hunts against me, nor the smear, the death threats.”
N1TV sent iMediaEthics press release today saying it was hacked after the videos of Laszlo were publicized. It fired her, saying she “behaved unacceptably,” as iMediaEthics previously wrote. The incident occurred at “a makeshift relocation camp in Roszke, a few hundred yards form the Serbian border,” the New York Times reported.
Agence France Presse reported: “Hungarian prosecutors said Thursday they had opened a criminal investigation for breach of peace against” Laszlo.
The Guardian reported:
“The opposition parties Együtt-PM and the Democratic Coalition said that they would initiate charges of ‘violence against a member of the community’, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, against László.
UPDATED: 9/15/2015 Added more info.