Photographing Police & Policing Protest: On Monday sixteenth February 2009 I photographed two protests, one towards a brand new regulation on photographing police and the second which made me query how the police have been policing protests. Fifteen years later we have now seen plenty of legal guidelines which severely prohibit the appropriate to protest and draconian new proposals to outlaw many extra of the actions which assist convey protests to public consideration.
Media Protest at Terror Regulation – New Scotland Yard
Round 400 individuals, primarily photographers, had turned as much as protest outdoors New Scotland Yard, then nonetheless on Victoria Avenue, Westminster, on the day that Part 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act got here into power.
This makes it an offence to {photograph} members of the police, armed forces or safety companies, or not less than to take action if the pictures are “prone to be helpful to an individual committing or getting ready an act of terrorism“.
The vagueness of this assertion is a a symptom of the failure of our parliament over current years to correctly scrutinise new laws, and journalists and others have protested that it may significantly inhibit the liberty of the press in addition to the conventional liberties of all residents. The Metropolitan Police Federation agreed, believing the regulation is unworkable and will properly inhibit the liberty of the press.
Photographers noticed it as one more regulation which will increase the local weather of worry felt by anybody utilizing a digicam on the general public streets. Many people have skilled questioning by the police when working; photographers have already been detained and searched underneath current anti-terrorist legal guidelines and different acts when overlaying demonstrations, travelling near airports and even photographing weddings.
Mark Thomas talking
A lot of London’s main press photographers turned as much as this ‘media occasion’ organised to focus on the hazards to our freedom of expression and motion this new regulation presents. Most of them wore badges or stickers proclaiming “I’m a photographer… not a terrrorist“, the title of the marketing campaign group arrange by photographers.
PHNAT’s founding description was “Images is underneath assault. Throughout the nation anybody with a digicam is focused as a possible terrorist. This marketing campaign is for everybody who values visible imagery press freedom.” It was arrange by a small group of London-based photographers and videographers who coated political protest together with myself and colleagues within the NUJ and grew quickly.
For as soon as this was a protest which gained large publicity even on the BBC and newspapers which typically ignore UK protests. It was in fact coated within the photographic press too, although on the time I discovered the standard of the pictures of the occasion in a few of them fairly missing.
Protest at Silence over Congo Genocide – Westminster
Police on the photographers’ protest had been pleasant and for as soon as I feel they didn’t even hassle to {photograph} us, although likely the entire space was coated by plenty of CCTV cameras. However there was a really totally different ambiance across the policing of this second occasion I photographed.
It was a reasonably small protest, with maybe 50 individuals in a march organised by Worldwide Congolese Rights towards the persevering with violence within the DRC, marching slowly down Victoria Avenue to Parliament Sq..
They marched slowly, at a funereal tempo in reminiscence of these killed in Congo within the preventing since 1996. The marchers have been regularly harassed by police to go quicker, however refused to take action. There have been in all probability extra police than marchers and the march was accompanied by 5 police automobiles, one in entrance of the marchers a surveillance automobile with loudspeakers and regularly filming the march.
When the march reached Parliament Sq., the marchers have been ushered right into a pen of obstacles on the aspect of the sq. dealing with Westminster Abbey and St Margarets, though clearly they supposed to display to Parliament fairly than the Church of England and absolutely ought to have been allowed to protest on the entrance of the sq.. One in every of their representatives was nonetheless arguing with police about this once I left.
Here’s what I wrote in 2009 concerning the Congo and the explanations behind this protest:
Capitalism at its rawest is preventing for the mineral wealth of the nation – significantly coltan, an ore containing niobium and tantalum, important for cell phones and different digital units, of which the Congo has 80% of identified world reserves and cobalt – of which it’s the world’s largest producer – but additionally diamonds, copper, and gold.
Competing pursuits making an attempt to seize these riches have led to over 6 million individuals being killed within the Congo, and unimaginable atrocities towards the individuals there – a few of which have been proven within the photos that a few of the demonstrators carried.
The Congo is a corrupt police state dominated by Laurent Kabila, with massive areas occupied by forces backed by neighbouring states and felony syndicates, together with the Rwandan military. Rwanda, underneath President Paul Kagame has supported the Nationwide Council for the Protection of the Folks loyal to former Normal Laurent Nkunda. The UK authorities is accused of supporting Rwanda.
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