Jason N. Parkinson: Video Journalist

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Stills, video, print (c) 2010 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

That was the year that was, 2009 – declared early on as the “Summer of Rage”. Trouble was the rage started before the year even began, as protests erupted outside the London Israeli Embassy in response to the festive bombing of Gaza. As a freezing January ensued several riots burst on to the streets of Kensington, hundreds were arrested and journalists limped from the street fighting bleeding and bruised.

Film: Boiling Point – Part One – Part Two

February saw the introduction of Section 76 of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act, making it a criminal offence to photograph police and armed service personnel. In response campaign group I’m A Photographer Not A Terrorist descended on New Scotland Yard with over 300 cameras.

In March the Guardian newspaper exposed the use of criminal databases on peaceful protestors, the extent of surveillance on journalists whilst covering the 2008 Kingsnorth Climate Camp in Kent and I gained a new nickname, “the bald one”, thanks to a Kent surveillance officer.

Film: Covering Climate Camp Part One - Part Two

Then April hit, the G20 came to town and all hell broke loose. Again, scores were arrested and injured, journalists were beaten, battered and broken and one man lay dead after being attacked from behind by a TSG riot squad officer. A second video captured the moment when Tomlinson hit the ground.

Film: Global Economic Meltdown

Two days later, I was on the Eurostar train to Strasbourg to cover the anti-Nato protests, still clinging to a mild concussion and holes kicked in both legs. The main day of protest panned out into an endless hail of tear gas, shock grenades and rubber bullets, with our team finally being pinned down as Black Bloc attacked French CRS riot police on a railway track with bricks, bottles and petrol bombs.

Mayday erupted into clashes with police in Brighton as the Smash EDO anti-militarist campaign group targeted the funders of the local bomb component factory.

Film: Tamil Part One – Part Two

The London Tamil protests also ran through the entire first half of the year, leading to peaceful mass human blockades of the streets, bringing the captial to a standstill.

It was while covering the protests that an NUJ photographer was grabbed by police and forcibly detained.

Video: Police Forcibly Detain Press Photographer

By the summer the expenses scandal broke and has ceased to leave the news since, as more ludicrous items were claimed for by our democratic representatives. Whilst trying to defend these claims for duck houses, hedge trimming, rocking chairs and “a fucking moat”, it exposed the innate contempt our politicians have for us.

In July the G8 delegates flew into L’Aquila, Italy, for another round of make-it-look-like-we’re-doing-something. The protests were small, but the three-day meeting in the earthquake zone revealed the extent of the friendship with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi.

Immigration, the most contentious issue in the UK today, became a top news story again. I returned to Calais, France two years after the film After Sangatte to cover the living conditions of those waiting to enter England in the hope their asylum claims would be accepted. On 22 September the French authorities cleared “The Jungle” refugee camp, but returning in October our team found all this had done was force the refugees to sleep rough on the streets as the harsh winter weather blew in off the North Sea.

Video: “Dignified” Destruction of Calais Refugee “Jungle”

The late summer also saw the arrival of the English Defence League (EDL) on to the streets of Britain and the beginnings of a rising far right movement. At first the protests were small, but always ended in violence. Nazi salutes and racist chants were captured time, time and time again, from a group claiming to be non-racist and non-violent. But by end of the year, it became clear the EDL were intent on creating a street army, their support coming from vaguely politicisied football hooligan gangs and far right groups such as the BNP, the National Front, Blood and Honour and Aryan Strike Force. Their goal, it would seem, is to stir up racial hatred, which they managed quite successfully in Harrow without turning up.

APTN Footage of Leeds EDL Protest and Rampage

Climate change was a big issue again, as we head further towards the tipping point, thousands of protestors descended on Copenhagen in Denmark to protest the International Climate Summit and Climate Camp arrived at Blackheath in London for a week of protests across the capital, then went on a countryside jaunt to shut down the Radcliffe power station near Nottingham.

In September the by-annual DSEi weapons convention also returned to a mass of protest, targeting the financial backers of the arms industry, as Senser released their single Resistance Now.

Good news funnelled through as the National Union of Journalists annual ADM was held in Southport. Photographer Guy Smallman was shot with a stun grenade by Swiss riot police back in 2003, blowing apart a large section of his left leg.

For six years he fought a court battle against the Swiss authorities to claim compensation. This year he finally won that battle.

Photographer Guy Smallman is hit with a stun grenade

November saw the G20 policing back in the news, this time for Commander Broadhurst, the G20 police operations chief, denying in parliament the existance of undercover police inside the protests.

Unfortunately for Broadhurst the video showing two undercover police appearing from a unit of police officers had been live on the Guardian website since the end of April. But it turned out there was not only two undercover officers but 25.

The final word of the year goes back to the English Defence League (EDL). Following their protest in Leeds issued me with a Fatwa. Photographer Marc Vallee recieved a death threat the same day, four days after he was targeted by the Neo-Nazi website Redwatch.

That was the year that was. This is the year that is. And I just turned 40-years-old. The real question now is: what next?

Marc Vallee End of Year Review

Jess Hurd Ten Year Review

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

A man begs money for food on Regent Street as people shop for Christmas

The most recent figures on those sleeping rough in London – compiled by charity Broadway in June this year – counted 4,672, a rise of 15 percent on last year.

A young man prepares for sleep on Tottenham Court Road

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday 16 December 2009: The first snow fall hits North London.

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>
Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

Film: Far Right Clash With Nottingham Police

Saturday 5 December 2009: The English Defence League (EDL) arrived in Nottingham in their hundreds and immediately clashed with police as supporters tried to break free from police lines.

16 people were arrested during the protest and seven have now been charged with public order offences, one protestor was charged with assaulting a police officer.

The cost of the 700-strong policing operation of the EDL Nottingham demonstration looks set to reach £1m.

EDL supporters also continued their attacks on the press. One photographer was punched in the face. Every other working photographer at one point or another during the day was threatened, myself included.

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

Film: EDL – Leeds – 31/10/2009

Tomorrow, Saturday 5 December 2009, will see the English Defence League (EDL) protest in Nottingham. To get an idea of what to expect here – finally – is the full length edit from the EDL Leeds protest back in October. A short video rush was released on the night through Associated Press.

EDL organisers claimed their supporters did not rampage through the streets and it was in fact Unite Against Fascism (UAF) protestors, but this film shows a very different story. The pattern is the same on all EDL protests, as my video coverage shows, from Birmingham Part One, Birmingham Part Two, Harrow and Manchester.

EDL organisers also claim they are not a racist group. Again, the footage, or more importantly, the audio has caught EDL supporters involved in racist chanting. A Guardian investigation into the EDL began exposing far right links.

So, knowing all this and more, and having covered most of their protests since the summer, it comes as no surprise that I was issued with a Fatwa from an EDL organiser. The point of this seems to be to intimidate, to make me and other journalists go away and stop exposing what is really going on in streets every time this group of vaguely politicised skinheads and football hooligans appear.

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com