Archive for the ‘Press Freedom’ Category
Report Digital Week Ending 27/04/12
This week’s belated Report Digital covers most the month of library uploads and coverage.
As Climate Rush called the Spring Clean action outside DEFRA, that saw their security overstepping the mark on restricting filming in a public place, the 2008 storming of parliament went into the online archive.
More 2010 student protests also went into the online archive, this time the Student Siege of Millbank Tory Headquarters and the night scenes from December 9 on Whitehall.
More Egypt archive footage from the Battle of Cairo also went in.
Coverage this month covered the Leyton Marsh protest eviction, the DPAC Trafalgar Square blockade, Olympic Security Concerns and the Tottenham Court Road siege by far right BNP supporter.
More footage is available from reportdigital.co.uk
© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk
PHNAT Flashmob City Hall
Tuesday 3 May 2011, World Press Freedom Day. Campaign group I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist(PHNAT) swooped on City Hall in London, notorious for private security restricting and even banning photography in the privately controlled public space.
Around 40 photographers turned up to highlight the problem of private security continually restricting press freedom along the Thames Walk and in other areas across the capital.
The report holds interviews with NUJ London Photographers’ Branch (LPB) Chair and PHNAT Co-Founder Jess Hurd, a few choice words from journalist/filmmaker Leah Delfin Borromeo and “A Letter to Boris” from LPB committee member and PHNAT organiser Grant Smith.
© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk
Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.
March 26 Media Liaison Officer – Commander Bob Broadhurst
Tomorrow the Metropolitan police force’s media liaison officer will be Commander Bob Broadhurst. In this video, shot on 18 May 2009 at the NUJ Photographer’s Conference, he upsets a few journalists by questioning the legitimacy of those holding the UK press card.
©Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk
Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.
Who’s Afraid of Photographers?
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Stills and print (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Video (c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk
Wednesday 27 October 2010: Representatives of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) joined Lib-Dem MP Don Foster and various lawyers to discuss: “Who’s Afraid of Photographers?”.
The NUJ commissioned a series of films from the seminar and they can been seen here and on the NUJ website.
Don Foster MP
Professor Chris Frost
Anna Mazzola – Hickman And Rose Solicitors
LPB Chair Jess Hurd
http://current.com/e/92382430/en_US
Press Freedom: Hostile Reconnaissance
Chez Cotton – Bindmans Solicitors
Photographer David Hoffman
NUJ Freelance Organiser John Toner
(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk
Please contact Report Digital or the AUTHOR for access to this material and the extensive five-year video archive.
>Police Apologise For Greek Embassy Incident
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Stills, video, print (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Video Documenting December 2008 Greek Embassy Incidents
Comment from one television news editor today said hopefully this apology “will start to turn the tide when it comes to police assumptions of powers over press and photographers.”
But considering another serious incident has happened less than 24-hours following the release of the Met Police apology it leaves doubt in one’s mind whether anything has really changed.
(c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.
>NUJ Slams Photographer’s Arrest
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Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.
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.
>Journalists Launch Civil Action Against Police
>All stills, video and print on this blog are (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Yesterday, 28 July 2009, papers were served to the Commissioner of the Metropolis relating to an incident outside the Greek Embassy in December 2008.
The said incident occured while covering a protest following the shooting of a young Athens demonstrator by Greek police.
The footage shot that day, as protestors blocked the embassy doorway and burned the Greek flag, went live across the country within a hour of the incident via Sky News and Associated Press.
Related articles.
Police Should Respect Press Freedom – Olly Zanetti, The Guardian
Photographers Complain About Police Obstruction – Kate Day, The Telegraph
Photographers Take Action Against The Met – NUJ
Met Investigation into Obstruction of Journalists
Anarchists Blockade London Greek Embassy
Press Freedom Paris: IFJ Words of Support
All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.
>Journalist Surveillance: "TREAT AS RESTRICTED"
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Following the Guardian report on the police treatment of FIT Watch activists Val Swain and Emily Apple at the 2008 Kent Climate Camp colleague and friend Marc Vallée blogged about the NUJ formal complaint that has now been delivered to Christopher Graham, the new information commissioner.
Vallée pointed out that despite repeated attempts spanning eight months to access the material held by the Metropolitan Police on five journalists involved in Data Protection Requests, only a minimal amount has come to light.
Vallée received one page from a police officer’s note book, which for some reason listed him with “(FIT)” written next to his name. And that was all he got, despite knowing from his case against the Met they had film of his assault by FIT and TSG officers while covering the 2006 Sack Parliament protest.
The London-based photojournalist, who specialises in covering protest and public order situations, has recounted a list as long as a MP’s expenses claim form on the times he has been stopped, questioned, photographed and filmed.
And it is no different for me. The only information I received back under the Data Protection Act was the above form documenting my S44 “Stop and Account” outside the US Embassy on 28 March, 2008, while covering a protest calling for the release from death row of journalist and Black Panther activist Mumia Abu Jamal.
As the form states, the reason for suspicion – “seen filming the US Embassy”. I might add with over £2,000 worth of equipment, in broad daylight, and carrying a national and international press card. Not the behaviour of a terrorist recon, one might say.
One thing that sticks out on the data on this form is being repeatedly listed as “Treat as Restricted” and any other relevant information is blacked out. This my lawyer has repeatedly questioned. To date there has been no explanation.
The Met have consistently denied that UK journalists are under surveillance, or that any details are held on a database. Yet this trickle of data has already contradicted the official police line.
On the 28 March US Embassy incident, after denying the police access to my footage, one officer gave me a copy of the pink slip and said, “There’s another one for your collection.” Which is true. I do indeed collect Stop and Search forms. But the question is, if they do not hold data on the press, how did they [the officers and HQ] know I had been detained on many previous occasions?
And here they are. Well, some of them at least.
So, the question then is, if one Stop and Search is recorded and the data held, what about all these others, and all those where I was detained and the officers did not have the relevant form to issue?
The answer probably lies in that the 28 March incident was reported on this blog and in the NUJ Freelance monthly, along with a catalogue of FIT surveillance, photographs, video, note-taking – the whole cahoots.
2007 was a particularly bad year for me. I was detained by police some 23 times, either for Stop and Search, Stop and Account, or just a good old fashioned talking to – be it under S44, S60 or S14.
2008 was a little less frustrating with eight times, although four of those were while trying to cover Climate Camp.
This year things seem to have eased off on this issue, but the unfortunate turn is, in less than a year I have been at the brunt of four injuries while working, one of those leaving me with internal injuries and off work for a month.
Related Films
Press Freedom: Collateral Damage
Covering Climate Camp Part One
Covering Climate Camp Part Two
I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!
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.
The G20 Protests: What A Bloody Mess!
It is now just over two weeks since the protests against the London 2009 G20 summit and a lot more has become clear since video and photographic evidence has rolled into various news outlets and online self-publishing websites.
My work on the G20 started with a short film on The Government of the Dead back in February. University of East London anthropologist Chris Knight took his band of zombies, dancing their way along Oxford Street to Tyburn, the site of ancient public executions, now known as Marble Arch, to hang an effigy of a banker. This followed on from the previous film Global Economic Crisis: The First Wave, which documented the initial London protests against failing capitalism and the £500 billion banker bailout.
Film: Government of the Dead: Hang a Banker
On April 1st, as thousands gathered around Liverpool Street station, the Space Hijackers drove a “riot tank” to RBS headquarters in the financial district (and immediately had it confiscated) and Climate Camp settled in their tents on Bishopsgate, I followed one arm of the four-pronged march on the Bank of England, straight into the lines of some 10,500 on duty police officers, all called in to protect the 29 leaders of the G20 group, and protect the banks and the bankers, well, apart from the Threadneedle Street branch of RBS, which was the only building in the area not boarded up.
The rest of the day panned out as most protest journalists imagined, hence many experienced photographers and video people using the now mandatory improvised safety equipment – helmets and arm and leg padding – something in itself that says a lot about policing these days. Others were not so ready for the brutal onslaught brought down into the streets by the infamous Metropolitan police force and the notorious black-clad, storm-trooper unit, the Territorial Support Group (TSG).
One particular baton charge at a group of press at 5.29pm left one photographer beaten and trampled by riot police.
Another photographer earlier that day had his arm broken after riot police beat him with telescopic truncheons, despite him holding up a press card and identifying himself as a “legitimate journalist”. For me, my trip to Strasbourg to cover the anti-NATO protests was dogged with a three-day headache and uncontrollable bouts of tiredness, symptoms I have experienced before and know to be mild concussion, after being repeatedly hit across the head with batons, when several attempts to smash my camera failed. This was on top of wearing a professional bright red mountaineering helmet with “PRESS” stencilled across the front and back. My legs above the shins ended up with two wounds, where I was repeatedly kicked and the shin pads I was wearing cut through the protective foam and dug two holes into my legs. The final attack I received was in the 5.29pm baton charge, 39 seconds into the film, on the second charge, you can see a police medic, using his baton as a stabbing implement, jabs me in the stomach with both hands.
On April 2nd, journalists trying to cover the memorial of Ian Tomlinson were then threatened with arrest by a City police inspector under Section 14 of the Public Order Act: “You have got a choice,” he announced, “you can either go away now or you can spend the rest of the afternoon in a cell. What do you want to do?”
Now, as I write this, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is considering legal action over this incident.
The sad fact of the matter is the violence and police tactics has yet again taken the limelight in nearly all coverage of the G20 summit. The issues being raised by protestors was mostly lost amid images of baton charges and bleeding skulls.
And the latest on the Ian Tomlinson case, as I try to finalise this blog is this. The second post mortem on Tomlinson finds he did not die from a heart attack but abdominal haemorrhaging.
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.
>Conference: I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist!
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On Thursday 26 February, following the highly successful media event, NUJ members organised an ‘I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist – Know Your Rights’ meeting.
The meeting was hosted by Photo-Forum and was chaired by Jess Hurd. The evening was introduced by photographer Peter Macdiarmid, with solicitor Anna Mazzola (Hickman and Rose Solicitors) and photographer Andrew Wiard.
Photograph courtesy of David Hoffman
The first film, Know Your Rights, on terrorism legislation features Anna Mazzola and Peter Macdiarmid.
Photograph courtesy of Marc ValleeThe second film, The UK Press Card: Past, Present and Future, features Andrew Wiard, freelance photographer, who speaks about the history and the future of the press card.
Photo-Forum is organised by NUJ photographers as a place for working photographers across the spectrum to bring images, ideas, photo stories, approaches and work in progress for supportive debate and criticism. It runs monthly on the second Thursday of the month in Central 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.
