Jihlava, South Moravia, Oct 31 (CTK) – Reporters´ attention can help refugees, Syrian Osama Abdal Mohsen who settled in Spain after an incident with a reporter near the Hungarian border said at a press conference within the International Documentary Film Festival Ji.hlava on Saturday.
Football coach Mohsen drew the media attention by a Hungarian TV reporter tripping him up on the Serbian-Hungarian border. Since the case stirred up such a fuss, he got a chance of starting a new life in Spain.
The situation in Syria si desperate, said Mohsen who arrived in Jihlava with his seven-year-old son whom he had carried in his arms on the border.
However, he did not come to hate journalists after the incident since they played an important role for refugees, he said.
They mean safety to refugees – when reporters and cameras are present, neither the police, nor soldiers can harm them, he said.
Mohsen with his family left for Turkey where they lived for over two years. As dozens of thousands of other migrants, he sailed to Greece then from where he continued on foot and by train across the Balkans, he told reporters.
He said he had experienced the worst moments of his life in Hungary where the local refugee facilities resembled camps for war hostages On the contrary, the approach to refugees in Austria has considerably improved, he added.
The refugee outflow will not stop until bloodsheds continue in Syria, Mohsen said.
He noted that he would return home to use his experience if the situation in Syria calmed down.
After the video shots of the female reporter knocking him down down were released, a Spanish football school in the Getafe suburb of Madrid offered a job to him.
The other members of Mohsen´s family stayed in Turkey. However, the family may reunite soon thanks to the accommodating approach of the Spanish authorities.
Hungarian TV photographer Petra Laszlo was sacked over the incident and accused of rioting. In a recent interview with the Izvestiya paper, she said she would sue Mohsen since he had changed his testimony.
He told CTK that he had neither given a testimony anywhere, nor changed it later. He was also suspected of having been fighting for radicals in Syria, which he denied.
