Teacher led away in handcuffs from Budapest protest

University professor Zoltán László Szabó, a regular contributor to conservative daily Magyar Nemzet, was handcuffed and held captive for more than seven hours after he tried to take photographs of police at a protest held in Budapest on Friday. He did not have any identification apart from a Fidesz pass to Parliament.

According to fn.hu, 64-year-old Szabó wanted to document how police officers asked for identification from a young man who attended a protest at the Szabadság tér Soviet military memorial. Szabó told Magyar Nemzet that an officer had forcefully taken his camera and made insulting comments about his entrance pass to Parliament which features the opposition party Fidesz's logo.

Szabó said he had been taken to the Szalay utca police station, and from there to the Gyorskocsi utca prison. He claims to have received inhumane treatment and been denied medicine he needed for high blood pressure.

Szabó said the reason he was humiliated is not that he was not carrying identification, but that he was trying to help a protester and was holding a Fidesz pass to Parliament.

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