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.
And thanks to the lovely people at Spreadshirt there’s now free shipping on everything in our shop with the promo code 23JAN. So go buy a hoodie or 3!
Social Media
You can use the Twitter hashtag #mpg to follow what’s going on and Flickr users can tag their photos with this Upcoming Event by adding the tag: upcoming:event=4903212 to your photos.
12 Noon
Saturday 23rd January 2010
Trafalgar Square
Posted by A Photographer
Tags: Event, London, Mass Photo Gathering, Photographers Rights, s44, Stop & Search, Trafalgar Square
Filed under: Events, Featured
I won’t be attending – which is a pity as I live less than 15 minutes away (King’s Cross) and share the concerns and aims of this website/campaign.
10-15 years ago this would have been a wonderful opportunity to have your voice heard, to make a public statement over an issue that concerns you, to meet others who share your concerns and so on . . . . but things have changed so much and with such speed that events like this are now little more than an invite to be harassed, intimidated, corralled, detained, arrested and even charged (regardless of you conduct).
Protest is, of course, still perfectly lawful when conducted within the law, but the fact of the matter is that it is now not at all well tolerated by an increasingly hostile, political and confrontational police force.
I have a 20 month year old son who I will be looking after later that day, I cannot afford to be shepherded into a police coral and detained for 7 or 8 hours, so protest (or even simply a gathering) like this is often off limits to people like myself – I am sure there are swathes of people like me who would also love to add their voice to this campaign but are steered away for similar reasons.
Over the past 5 years or so I have been stopped 6 or 7 times by the police while out shooting (detained once) – and they have been almost universally aggressive and rude. About the worst thing you can do is to point out your rights – your right to take pictures, your right to anonymity and so on – to do this invites an hour long fishing exercise, where they will harass and question and prod and poke and test and push looking to trip you up, to find something, anything to use against you.
This protest is playing their game to a certain extent.
You should have brought your son for a bit.
nine… eleven.
@revaaron – what did nine eleven have to do with photography?
I’m inclined to go but my concern is whether the demo has been given permission. In the pdf linked below, section 5 (rules 9,10) prohibit speeches or demonstrations without prior permission in Trafalgar Square:
http://www.london.gov.uk/trafalgarsquare/docs/squares_byelaws.pdf
I’m all for making a point but I don’t want to be arrested.
It’s a Mass Photo Gathering, not a protest. Come along!
Interesting. Technically, section 5.5 would prohibit you from using a mobile telephone unless you use it with headphones. It might also be interpreted to stop you from even using a camera.
You may not “use any apparatus for the transmission, reception, reproduction or amplification of sound, speech or images, except apparatus designed and used as an aid to defective hearing, or apparatus used in a vehicle so as not to produce sound audible to a person outside that vehicle, or apparatus where the sound is received through headphones;”
Who said anything about being a protest?
It’s just a meet up of people who share a common interest. Photography.
**A Photographer says:
January 20, 2010 at 8:42 pm
It’s a Mass Photo Gathering, not a protest. Come along!**
**Benn says:
January 21, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Who said anything about being a protest?
It’s just a meet up of people who share a common interest. Photography.**
Unfortunately you cannot simply define a gathering as you would like, if it is interpreted by the police as a protest (regardless of what you tell them it is) they will use SOCPA (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005) against you.
The SOCPA legislation does exclude Trafalgar Square from the Act (the location of the ‘gathering’) – but don’t let that fool you, the police don’t let small details like that bother them when it comes to protest – I have a broken Canon 5D body and chipped tooth to attest to that.
It’s like a flashmob, I’m sure nobody asks permission for those.
We’ll hopefully be there!
The real terrorists are goverment, not muslims.
“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible
reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”
Adolf Hitler
We’ve just made up hundreds of Stop And Search Cards that will be given out at tomorrow’s meet. Good luck everyone!
I’ll be there, theres about 20 of us coming from my University, we’re all studying photography so of course this is very important to us.
I just hope it doesn’t descend into something unruly if idiots turn up.
Also, it might not be billed a protest but the majority of people who are going, are going to protest their feelings against the stuff thats going on.
I suppose how its expressed is what will define the event. I’m going to show support and I’m going to be counted as a number, not to make noise or a scene.
Any link between the increased ‘terror threat’ level and the proposed demo? It makes nice ‘foil’ to use on any media interview…..
Highly likely, given that the BBC are covering it.
It costs the Government nothing to send out a threat escalation notice, it’s plausible given the current tensions, makes them look on the ball and it is a neat move to limit the damage that criticism like ours causes.
Manipulating opinion through the use of state mechanisms that should not be used for such purposes has been a problem for the UK under successive governments and is a further reflection of the issues that we are highlighting today. Another example of unnecessary erosion of trust that could be avoided by the application of some common sense.
Is there some new anti-terrorist legislation before Parliament? Or is a snap election due?
please just turn up take pictures!be in the group photo.
thats it.
[...] photographers will be making a stand at Trafalgar Square for a mass gathering in defence of street photography. Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed [...]
Sadly can’t make it, hoping it all goes well…
Very poor light out there today. Fancy calling it off, or postponing it until the Spring?
When you find out that all Police authority’s are in fact private for profit operations, so are mag courts & the county courts, ie they all have a Dunn & Bradstreet numbers you then begin to realise why there are so many silly statutes on the books that are really just there for revenue collection.
A “police man” can be either a Policeman in which case he use discression OR he can be a Policyman, carrying out the policies of his private for profit employer ie the Police Authority he works for. Most beat cops only act as the later, most of the time mainly through lack of knowledge on their own part.
However they can not do much without your consent. so don’t give it. Much more info can be found at the following forums :-
http://www.fmotl.com/forum/
http://www.tpuc.org/forum/
as well as many more that are out there
Nothing is what you think it is !!!!!!!!!
if you really know nothing about all of this, check out John Harris’s talks first on tpuc
good luck today
John Harris ! He’s bit of an idiot to be honest, his heart is in the right place, but all the freeman stuff is largely useless.
Link to BBC News article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476318.stm
Just saw the Sky News report, good stuff to everyone who attended, I wish I had gone now : ( but the coward in me didn’t like the idea an afternoon of shit from some gang of state goons erect on the knowledge that they can harass whoever takes their fancy – but from what I can see there was no real police presence.
Oh well, next one then !
Hi, here some pictures from the mass gathering:
http://fotki.lv/ru/Mr.Capric/712899/
Should you have any comments, please write to me kozerozhka-at-gmail-dot-com
Good luck to all who went yesterday & thanks, on behalf of all of us who either couldn’t make it or were too intimidated to do so. John Holyer’s comment is particularly relevent. Thanks also to those who posted photos of the event.
Wish i could have made it down for the meet (I live in Scotland). Seen some great shots of the event.
Thanks!
[...] you at the protest tomorrow? http://PhotographerNotaTerrorist.org/2009/12/mass-photo-gathering/ #fb @phnat [...]
Congrats to all who attended. We need to do more of these demonstrations to increase public awareness. I just returned from Paris, Barcelona and Rome and was stopped countless times for no reason by both police and private security. Rome in particular needs a demonstration, I’d suggest at the Spanish Steps. Bring tripods as well, for some reason the cops feels that tripods are more of a threat than just about any other object in creation.
Keep up the great work!
Congrats to all who attended and the event organisers.
Excellent awareness and publicity created.
Have you seen the Daily Mail today? Now they are stopping children’s TV presenters carrying hairdryers, this won’t have done them any favours!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246151/ITVs-Toonattik-presenters-Anna-Williamson-Jamie-Rickers-stopped-anti-terror-police-carrying-HAIRDRYERS.html
it was a great event and thanks to those who made it happen, if needs to be done again I will be there!
Got some great pics on the day http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkygb/
Sorry I’m late to add something to this thread. Where would our society be without street photography? No Henri Cartier-Bresson, No Paul Strand … No Eugene Atget … I’d rather slit my wrists than live in a world of government led creative clampdown. Maybe it’s time to use the devious methods of 1930′s crime photographers again
http://www.pbase.com/image/121534307
Sorry I couldn’t make the demo but here’s my contribution to the cause.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28178879@N06/sets/72157623323627758/
Keep up the fight!
Don’t believe political leaders or senior police officiers who claim that this abuse will stop. Unaccountable police officiers still abuse their powers: Just look at this:
“Photographer films his own ‘anti-terror’ arrest”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/21/photographer-films-anti-terror-arrest
The totalitarian state is getting closer and closer.
Even more:
“Mall security guard accuses shopper of being a paedophile for photographing his own son”
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/24/mall-security-guard.html
(It would be great if the webmaster could make a compilation about all these incidents.)
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/5024297.Police_used_terror_legislation_to_stop_ex_RAF_engineer_in__Kidlington/
Disquieting piece of footage over at the Oxford Times site. Stephen Russell, in his late 50s, was on a trip to buy fish and chips in Kidlington High Street when he spotted police swarming around. He had his camera with him and took four photos because it was unusual to see so much action in the village.
An officer wrongly demanded the ex-RAF engineer delete the photos. Mr Russell rightly refused – it is not illegal to photograph police in a public place.
He was then searched using powers under Section 43 of the Terrorism Act,.
He recorded the incident. Go and watch the footage. It’s simply astonishing. Amongst other things, the fool of a bullying, overbearing policeman said, to a law-abiding member of the public who had done nothing wrong
You are a stranger in Kidlington – tell me who you are – what is your reason for being here
On what possible basis was any of that asked? We don’t live in a country in which the police can demand our papers, to state our business. Moreover, just look at the way this oaf treats a palpably honest and reasonable member of the public. The domineering “I’m in charge, you justify yourself to me” attitude is typical of the way that the police are working very hard to lose the confidence of the law-abiding majority, who no longer feel that they’re on our side.
Moreover, what absurd bit of self-serving sophistry – total dishonesty, really – to use Terrorism Act powers to search this man. He was very, very obviously not a terrorist. It is behaviour like this that undermines belief in the government’s terror agenda and shows that powers such as these can’t be given to officers, because they abuse them. The officer should now be required to justify his use of Terrorism Act powers in this case and if he can’t, then he should be disciplined.
[...] photographers will be making a stand at Trafalgar Square for a mass gathering in defence of street photography. Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed [...]