The Szőlő Street scandal is a child abuse scandal in the Budapest Reformatory, commonly referred to as the Szőlő Street Reformatory, that began on 27 May 2025, when former director Péter Pál Juhász and his partner were arrested on suspicions of child sexual abuse and running a prostitution ring. These arrests gained political significance in September, when Gábor Kuslits, former director of the Budapest Regional Child Protection Service, claimed in an interview that Juhász's case had been known for years, but police failed to act despite reports. Kuslits claimed that this was due to two high-ranking politicians being involved in the case.
Minister of Justice Bence Tuzson announced that no member of the government and no minors are involved in this case. Despite no evidence proving it, geopolitical analyst Csaba Káncz specifically accused Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, who when asked about this in Parliament, called these allegations a character assassination attempt. Several Fidesz politicians strongly condemned the people behind this "smear campaign". Contrary to the Justice Minister's report, multiple witnesses testified that they were molested by Péter Pál Juhász as minors, and Chief Prosecutor stated that 15 underage victims have been identified .
The acting director of the institution who took over after Juhász's arrest, Károly Kovács-Buna, resigned, after which security camera footage was published of him physically abusing children in his care. After his confession and arrest, state-run juvenile detention centers were placed under direct police oversight. Tisza Party, the largest opposition party, released a previously unpublished official report from 2021, which states that one-fifth of the children in state care have experienced abuse. On 20 January 2026, the Szőlő Street Reformatory was closed by the government.
Protests erupted in the capital with tens of thousands of people calling for the government's resignation. eleven suspects have been interrogated in connection with this case.
Background Péter Pál Juhász was appointed as the director of the Szőlő Street Reformatory in 2011 by a Fidesz politician, the department head in the , despite the fact that Juhász was forced to leave two of his jobs in the past due to reports of "improper relationships" with some minors in his care and that the head of the Municipal Child Protection Services warned the department head not to place Juhász in this kind of position.
On 27 May 2025, Péter Pál Juhász, was taken into custody on suspicion of human trafficking, forced labor, abuse of public office, and misuse of a firearm. His partner, Zamira A., who once worked as the institution's security chief, was also taken into custody on suspicion of human trafficking and forced labor. According to the charges, two women in their twenties were employed at the institution as childcare workers on paper, but in reality they worked as prostitutes, and part of their earnings went to Juhász.
Months passed after their arrests before the case gained political significance due to an interview. In early September, Gábor Kuslits, former director of the Budapest Regional Child Protection Service (Tegyesz), gave an interview to in which he claimed that Juhász's case of sexual exploitation and human trafficking of girls from another institution had been known within the profession for many years. According to Kuslits, in 2020, child protection guardians who had noticed Juhász's activities told a police officer what had happened to their ward, and the police officer told them to sign a confidentiality agreement, saying that they were aware of Juhász's activities and that a covert investigation was underway against him and he would be brought down, but then nothing happened. In the same interview, Kuslits claimed that two high-ranking politicians were mentioned in professional circles as having protected Juhász, but he did not name them. He said that "they used to take boys to one of them, and girls to the other". No evidence or witness has confirmed the involvement of politicians.
September 2025
On 18 September 2025, Minister of Justice Bence Tuzson announced his report, which was completed within two days, and states that according to the , no member of the government was involved in the Szőlő Street case and that a foreign intelligence service was likely also involved in the "unprecedented attack on the Hungarian government". They claim that Klára Dobrev's press statement is a malicious slander and completely unfounded. Dobrev wrote a letter to Minister of the Interior Sándor Pintér and initiated the formation of a board of inquiry in the parliament's judiciary committee, but this was voted down by Fidesz.
Csaba Káncz, known on social media as a geopolitical analyst, named specific politicians in one of his posts, including Zsolt Semjén. Immediately after Káncz's post, government circles began discussing how the accusations were unfounded and that they would likely file a criminal complaint for defamation.
On 22 September, the first day of the autumn parliamentary session, Gergely Arató, representative of the Democratic Coalition, brought up the Szőlő Street case and questioned Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán. At the end of his speech, he also addressed a question to Zsolt Semjén: "Who is Uncle Zsolti?" Orbán responded by calling the rumors a smear campaign reminiscent of communist times. After Orbán, Semjén asked to speak and said that this was a "diabolically constructed character assassination attempt". "This is the blood libel itself, the Beelzebub accusation known from the Bible. It is a blatant lie, a baseless slander. We have filed complaints." said Semjén, who then spoke about how he is a sworn enemy of pedophilia and was the first who "dared to stand up against the LGBTQ lobby". Political scientist responded to this latter comment by saying that "malicious intent or basic ignorance" may be behind the conflation of pedophilia and the LGBTQ community.
The next day, Future Prime Minister Péter Magyar, then president of the largest opposition party, Tisza Party, called on Orbán to suspend Semjén from his position as deputy prime minister until the Szőlő Street case had been investigated. He referred to the character assassination campaigns carried out by the ruling party against its political opponents over the past 15 years. Zsolt Bayer, a publicist for Magyar Nemzet, said: "If any of these allegations are true, then the government and the two ruling parties must fall."
On 24 September, Minister of Justice Bence Tuzson published the ministerial report he had prepared at the government's request on the allegations concerning criminal proceedings at the Szőlő Street Reformatory. However, the decree authorizing the minister to prepare the report was not published in the Hungarian Gazette until 1 p.m., while Tuzson posted about it at 11:59. Tuzson listed the findings of the report, including that no minors or politicians were mentioned in the criminal case, that there was no doubt about the innocence of the ministers, and that foreign secret service involvement had also been raised in the case. According to the report, Csaba Káncz was also questioned as a witness, and he said that he had no evidence in the case and that he had obtained his statements from an influential member of a nationally-known influential political family. The report concludes that the investigation will continue in order to uncover "further connections to organized, coordinated action against the government".
Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group, said on () program that this was an unprecedented and premeditated attack against the Hungarian government and state institutions, as well as a discrediting of the police and secret services, which "must be punished in the most brutal way possible". The Fidesz faction leader announced that he would initiate a parliamentary investigation into the matter and that all available legal means would be used to dismantle the network described in the ministry's report. Kocsis also said that the background and operators of all Facebook pages that participated in the smear campaign must be revealed. He specifically mentioned the YouTube channel , which analyzed Semjén's parliamentary speech in a detailed video. According to Kocsis, former politician Péter Juhász must be held accountable for his fake video, and Klára Dobrev must leave public life, and even Péter Magyar could be in trouble.
The "fake video" mentioned by Kocsis, which Péter Juhász published on 19 September is actually unrelated to the Szőlő Street case and is connected to a children's home "near Ózd", but the media and public discourse have conflated the two cases. This is where the term "Uncle Zsolti" (actually Uncle Zsolt) comes from.
Tamás Menczer, communications director for Fidesz, stated at a forum called (): "They will all be reported, and each of them will answer for this despicable act before the courts." Feró Nagy, who also appeared at the forum, added: "Attacks on the government must be countered immediately." On 28 September, Antal Rogán also brought up the matter in an interview on Mandiners YouTube channel.
On 29 September, during the parliamentary session, Tímea Szabó, representative of the Dialogue party, made the following statement on the subject: "Uncle Zsolti is the entire Fidesz system. Uncle Zsolti is not a person, but rather the abusive, pedophile-protecting, child-abusing Fidesz policy that we have been seeing for 15 years." György Balla of Fidesz said that the opposition was engaged in "the most disgusting smear campaign" and "wanted to provoke riots" and "create chaos" in Budapest.
Semjén stated on ATV's Straight Talk program that the accusations against him are not only false but also impossible, since, according to the prime minister, he is unfamiliar with child protection institutions and has never been in the vicinity of such an institution.
October 2025 Active YouTuber and former politician Péter Juhász was a guest on Partizán's live show on 2 October 2025, after police officers showed up at his home that morning to conduct a search, where they seized evidence in the Szőlő Street case. Péter Juhász reported that he was surprised when five police officers arrived at his home at 9:45 with a warrant that clearly stated that his home was being searched in connection with the Szőlő Street case, even though he had never spoken about the case and knew nothing about it, as his video was related to a children's home near Ózd, but the two cases had been conflated by the media, rumors, and public discourse.
Despite the fact that Péter Juhász only had an audio recording of the case near Ózd, the police went to his home in connection with the Szőlő Street case. According to him, they justified their action by saying that "high-ranking politicians may be involved in both cases", thus linking them together. He handed over the phone containing the audio recording of "Uncle Zsolt" to the police officers, but they confiscated all of his electronic devices. That afternoon, Máté Kocsis named on his Facebook page the source in Péter Juhász's video who accused Uncle Zsolt, an unnamed politician, of child sexual abuse. He also listed statements about him that, in his opinion, cast doubt on his credibility. On Partizán, Péter Juhász acknowledged that it was indeed the person posted by Kocsis, who, according to him, had not been hiding, but did not want to expose himself because he only knew what he had already said in the video.
That evening, Gergely Gulyás also spoke out on the matter, saying: "No sane, sensible person would ever have thought that any member of the government could be involved in such a scandal." On 4 October, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said of the accused Semjén: "I'm not saying he's a saint, but he's almost one."