Yesterday I was out covering protests against the arms fair taking place in East London as a freelance photographer. I wasn’t commissioned but I hope to sell some of the pictures through the libraries I place work with as well as possibly direct from my own ‘My London Diary’ web site where they will be posted shortly. I’ve also already contributed a couple of short reports to ‘Indymedia‘ on both the march by the ‘Campaign Against the Arms Trade‘, here passing down the Barking Road,
and the Space Hijackers, who hired a tank (or at least some similar military vehicle) to take
themselves to the event after the police had stopped their own real tank. In the picture it has just arrived and stopped outside the main vehicle gate of the arms fair.
Like most news photographers, I have a press card. On the back of mine it says “The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland recognise the holder of this card as a bona-fide newsgatherer.”
A few months ago a joint working party of police and journalists came to an agreement over guidelines for relations between the press and police, recognising the need to allow proper access to events and cooperation between police and those carrying the card.
Unfortunately although the Chief Police Officers may recognise the card – and have read the guidelines, too many officers lower down haven’t. Yesterday, when asked at one point to show my card, I was even told it wasn’t a real press card and the officer concerned wouldn’t recognise that I was press. Last year I took a picture of a fellow photographer and union member having a similar confrontation:
In his case, the police held him inside a cordon for 20 minutes although several colleagues showed their own cards to make it clear his was genuine. I was lucky in that I was just threatened with arrest if I didn’t stop arguing and get back on the other side of a police line. So I did as I was told despite being rather worked up. Unfortunately although I told him I was taking his number I was so agitated that I forgot it before I could write it down, so I can’t make a formal complaint. I thought I had it on a picture, but it isn’t visible.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been threatened with arrest for just trying to do my job. I don’t think I’m getting any special treatment, and other photographers who photograph similar events suffer in the same way. Mostly I get on well with police, and they are sometimes very helpful, and of course I recognise that they often have a difficult job.
In handling demonstrations such as this by the Space Hijackers, they do seem to me to make the job more difficult for themselves by deliberately provoking the demonstrators, often moving them – as they did me – for no good reason and imposing arbitrary restrictions. The continued and over-aggressive photographing of people also raises the temperature and can be of little real use – they must by now have several thousand images of me on record.
Demonstrator and police photographer
I go to events aiming to record what happens, to tell the story – as I see it – using my camera. I like to think of my camera (and flash) spreading a little light on what is happening, and making it known to a wider audience.
Some police – not all, but too many – seem to want to keep things private. They would prefer the press didn’t come along to demonstrations, or at least stayed in a nice neat area somewhere under police control. They think of those of us who cover such events and interact with the protesters as ‘bad’ press.
More pictures from both events on ‘My London Diary’ shortly.
Peter MarshallÂ
