I am a photographer not a terrorist

18/01/2010
I am a photographer not a terrorist

It's bitter irony that in a country that has 25% of the world's CCTV cameras, with police forces that regularly deploy teams of photographers to photograph participants of demonstrations and other public gatherings, that our right to photograph is being curtailed and restricted.

Now wielding a camera in public place, whether you're a professional photographer or a train spotter, or anything in between, you run a very real risk of being, stopped, searched, questioned and detained by the forces of law and order. Such is the impact of Sec 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and the new Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act, that means anyone taking a photograph of a police officer, or member of the armed services could be deemed to have committed a criminal offence .

However, this is not just another notch in the racheting down of our civil liberties, it goes much further. This impacts on our ability to document, to record, not just to capture that ‘decisive moment' but to photograph the mundane, the ordinary, the vernacular. In essence it threatens artistic expression per se.

To give you example, a good friend of mine with whom I've photographed many a demo, won't take a camera out late at night in Manchester. He works late, and when leaving work 12- 1am in the morning, he would like to explore night photograph around the streets of Manchester. But as he says “Imagine being stopped by the police at 1-2 in the morning photographing some public building or whatever misty northern scene you can imagine, as a muslim man, with a degree in Electronics. You try explaining that one to the coppers.”

Who can blame him in a city where we have major terrorism raids on a quarterly basis.

This legislation is a clumsy tool in the hands of the Plod, it creates nothing but fear and suspicion
Over the last few months the Indy has carried a number of stories of photographers harassed, searched, detained. I can also recall an incident of a friend who being caught photographing a sealed drain on one of the streets outside the Labour Party conference in Manchester on his camera phone. He was arrested, and detained and they raided his flat and took his PC.

The issue is surely this. Next time it could be you and the most dangerous thing you have said is "say cheese". However, help is hand, with I am a photographer not a terrorist and all hail to those who set it up (Jess Hurd, David Hoffman, Jonathan Warren and Marc Vallee and others)

With a website with the info that you need, and a Facebook group of 10,000 and growing. A call to action has been called for this Saturday 23 rd January 12 noon Trafalgar Square. This is an action open to all photographers.

As they put on the website “Mass Gathering in defence of street photography I'm a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography. Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed police detaining an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London, the arrest of a press photographer covering campaigning santas at City Airport and the stop and search of a BBC photographer at St Pauls Cathedral and many others. PHNAT feels now is the time for a mass turnout of Photographers, professional and amateur to defend our rights and stop the abuse of the terror laws” As with all attacks on our civil liberties, we have to resist, defy and campaign, either until the law is repealed or made redundant.

The images that came out of the G20 demos of last year turned the tables on the surveillance society, we shouldn't forget that lesson because I'll can bet you that the authorities haven't.
Photography in the UK is under attack.

Because No photography means...
No history
No art
No freedom.

Richard Searle
Manchester Respect

Website http://photographernotaterrorist.org/