Our colleagues from Magyar Nemzet were harassed inside the European Parliament building and threatened with expulsion from the building by an EP employee.
Our colleagues intended to ask questions of MEPs leaving a meeting of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI). We learned that, during a background discussion in Strasbourg, talks had taken place about modifying procedural rules for immunity cases. The proposed change aims to allow suspension of immunity cases originating from member states under rule-of-law proceedings — a move that could prevent deliberation on requests to suspend Peter Magyar's immunity.
When Magyar Nemzet's journalist asked an EP employee why they were following them, the response was that “you misbehaved last week,” and if “you misbehave again today,” you’ll be banned from the European Parliament. In fact, the Brussels official went so far as to threaten to call security on our colleagues.
EP employee from the communist era has never heard of press freedom
“It’s either me who'll escort you, or security,” said the EP staffer, who then proceeded to lecture our journalists for over half an hour, even though they were simply trying to do their job.
The EP employee continued to harass our journalist even after being informed that our staff had not attended any official or unofficial EP events the previous week, therefore could not possibly have "misbehaved."
