Brit photographers fight back
From holiday snaps to amateur shooting and photojournalism, photography is becoming a tricky hobby and business in Britain today.
Since the Counter-Terrorism Act 2000 came into force, many amateur and professional photographers have found themselves questioned, manhandled and detained by police who have received extended stop and search rights. Under section 44, uniformed police officers can stop individuals ‘for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism’. However, ‘the powers do not require a reasonable suspicion that such articles will be found’.
As many photographers have experienced, cameras – especially if they are professional-looking or are mounted on a tripod – are now often deemed ‘suspicious articles’. More and more professional and amateur snappers are being stopped by police while documenting everything from demonstrations to bus stations and street life in Britain. In December last year, one photographer was detained under Section 44 while covering a wedding in east London. At the start of this year, police stopped an amateur photographer shooting ships in Cleveland, demanding to know if he had any terrorism connections. And in April, an Austrian father and son photographing Vauxhall bus station while on holiday in London were ordered by police to delete their pictures in the name of preventing terrorism.
In response to this mood of suspicion and to growing restrictions on individual and press freedom, the newly formed campaign group, I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist, staged a photography ‘flash mob’ on Reuters plaza in Canary Wharf, east London, on Saturday.
As the Reuters Plaza clocks – which have become an iconic image of Canary Wharf, a flashy business, banking and media district – struck 15.00, 80-odd photographers took their cameras out and, to the surprise and bemusement of onlookers, started taking pictures of the clocks, the surrounding skyscrapers, passers-by and each other.</em>
Madness.
