The Guardian(.co.uk) has been collecting stories about police applying some shady sort of license they have in the UK to stop and search, even arrest, street photographers, professionals and amateurs, sometimes for suspected terrorist activities, sometimes for ‘anti-social’ behavior. The cases are interesting in a wider context, as police and legal trends set in one European country tend to spread, and particularly for the photographers and filmmakers everywhere alike, as such a tendency would be set to seriously damage the potential of documentary work.
In the cases of the published stories, some of the photographers have videorecorded the process of their harrassment and/or subsequent arrest – making these cases doubly interesting for anyone concerned with cinema as a truth-producing tool to challenge authority.
In the links below, the videos are included with the articles.
On January 23, 2000 photographers gathered for protest against these practices, in Trafalgar Square, London.
The UK terrorism law, also known as section 44, has been applied in peculiar ways, even more promiscuously than many of those imagined, who were concerned about the road ahead when Western countries responded to the attack on the twin towers, in 2001, with various legislation increasing state authorities’ powers to track and interfere in people’s daily lives. In 2008, 2300 children stopped by British officers in the name of terrorism law, thereof 58 under the age of ten.
As many photographers and filmmakers will know, photography tends to be forbidden and/or strictly controlled in those places defined as pseudo-public or post-public – i.e. shopping malls and private commercial areas, that often have the aura of being public space, but in which behavior can be restricted and controlled far more extensively than civil rights would allow in real public spaces, such as on the street or in a public square. The right to take pictures as seen as part of the ongoing struggle about public space.
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Right until after Iceland joined the EEC in 1993, halfway into the EU, every municipality had a sheriff, with a rather extensive role, as law-enforcing police officer, prosecutor and judge in many matters. I remember an instance when my father, an avid amateur photographer, took up his camera in a small town where we had just moved to, to take pictures of sheep that had just been slaughtered and lay hung on some sort of wooden suspense, blood dripping – all quite picturesque – when a hand suddenly arrived in the frame, forbidding the photography altogether. It turned out to be the local sheriff, doing his own illegal home-slaughtering, and conveniently enforcing local restrictions on photography on site. Mostly though, as far as I know, photographers have probably been rather free to do their thing in Iceland, that is, except in the shopping malls, of course. There’s no freedom like free markets.
Are you a terrorist photographer or just an anti-social one?
The Guardian(.co.uk) has been collecting stories about police applying some shady sort of license they have in the UK to stop and search, even arrest, street photographers, professionals and amateurs, sometimes for suspected terrorist activities, sometimes for ‘anti-social’ behavior. The cases are interesting in a wider context, as police and legal trends set in one European country tend to spread, and particularly for the photographers and filmmakers everywhere alike, as such a tendency would be set to seriously damage the potential of documentary work.
In the cases of the published stories, some of the photographers have videorecorded the process of their harrassment and/or subsequent arrest – making these cases doubly interesting for anyone concerned with cinema as a truth-producing tool to challenge authority.
In the links below, the videos are included with the articles.
London, dec. 11, 2009.
Accrington February 21, 2010.
On January 23, 2000 photographers gathered for protest against these practices, in Trafalgar Square, London.
The UK terrorism law, also known as section 44, has been applied in peculiar ways, even more promiscuously than many of those imagined, who were concerned about the road ahead when Western countries responded to the attack on the twin towers, in 2001, with various legislation increasing state authorities’ powers to track and interfere in people’s daily lives. In 2008, 2300 children stopped by British officers in the name of terrorism law, thereof 58 under the age of ten.
As many photographers and filmmakers will know, photography tends to be forbidden and/or strictly controlled in those places defined as pseudo-public or post-public – i.e. shopping malls and private commercial areas, that often have the aura of being public space, but in which behavior can be restricted and controlled far more extensively than civil rights would allow in real public spaces, such as on the street or in a public square. The right to take pictures as seen as part of the ongoing struggle about public space.
—
Right until after Iceland joined the EEC in 1993, halfway into the EU, every municipality had a sheriff, with a rather extensive role, as law-enforcing police officer, prosecutor and judge in many matters. I remember an instance when my father, an avid amateur photographer, took up his camera in a small town where we had just moved to, to take pictures of sheep that had just been slaughtered and lay hung on some sort of wooden suspense, blood dripping – all quite picturesque – when a hand suddenly arrived in the frame, forbidding the photography altogether. It turned out to be the local sheriff, doing his own illegal home-slaughtering, and conveniently enforcing local restrictions on photography on site. Mostly though, as far as I know, photographers have probably been rather free to do their thing in Iceland, that is, except in the shopping malls, of course. There’s no freedom like free markets.