Hungarian ambassador asks New York Times for correction

Budapest, January 12 (MTI) – The Hungarian ambassador in Washington, DC has asked The New York Times in an official letter to issue a correction in connection with an article which appeared in the US daily, claiming that a Syrian refugee woman was “beaten unconscious in a Hungarian prison”, daily Magyar Idok reported on Tuesday.

According to the paper, Reka Szemerkenyi’s letter proposes that the paper should issue a correction in order to prevent possible legal steps.

The ambassador told the paper’s editors that an article published in early January included accusations about a Hungarian official committing a very serious crime, yet no evidence had been presented to support the charges.

A Syrian woman “was beaten unconscious by a Hungarian prison guard after refusing his advances,” the NYT wrote in the article, which describes the experiences of women on the “migrant trail”.

The consulate general in New York has already asked the paper for a correction. Magyar Idok insisted that the article’s author, Katrin Bennhold, had told people in the Hungarian press that she had not checked whether the statement she cited was true or not. Magyar Idok added that this would be in violation of the US paper’s code of ethics.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters