Fed up with increasing hassle from the feds, plastic cops and security jobsworths, UK snappers are gathering at Trafalgar Square at noon on Saturday 23rd January as part of the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! campaign.
The campaign aims to defend the rights of professional and amateur photographers and stop the abuse of the terror laws which have resulted in some quite bonkers arrests.
We’ve been documenting the harassment that’s been dished out to ordinary photographers for some time, and have compiled a comprehensive section on our sister site, urban75: Photographers Rights And The Law In The UK – the law and photography.
We’ve also compiled a depressingly long archive of case studies and examples of photographers feeling the long arm of the law under quite dubious circumstances, so it’s important that a stand is made.
An earlier protest saw hundreds of photographers gathering outside the police headquarters at Scotland Yard – naturally, we were there to document the event.
One of the terrorism laws that the police have been stretching into unrecognisable shapes to target photographers is Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Interestingly, this has just been declared illegal by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, so we’ll be seeing if the police continue to try that one on.
Join the protest!
Trafalgar Square, 12 Noon, Saturday, 23rd January 2010
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