I think today is the first time I’ve read The Lone Voice blog, and it isn’t one I’ll be adding to my lists. It claims to be written by “FIDO The Dog”, a 43 year old Virgo male from Newport, Gwent who states he is “Fighting against the dhimmitude* and pc attitude that has taken over my country” and has an unfortunate fixation with Gordon Brown, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker (about the last of which he does does have some sensible concerns.)
FIDO The Dog has made a number of posts about photographers being picked on by the police, and his post Yet more police abuse of photographers. features a couple of Welsh examples to add to the growing list of police overstepping their powers.
Yesterday Garry Chinchen was threatened with arrest for ‘breach of the peace’ when he stopped to photograph people on a jet-ski at the Glyn Neath Lakes water-sports centre from a lay-by on the A465. Despite the police apparently admitting that the pictures he had taken were perfectly lawful.
The Lone Voice also links to another incident I’ve read about before from last September, when a photographer from Motorcycle News had his camera seized (and returned after some argument) in a lay-by at Betws-y-Coed when he photographed a cop watching “a protest rally over North Wales Police’s heavy-handed treatment of law-abiding motorcyclists.”The MCN site has a picture of the event with audio of the argument between the photographer and the police officer.
There is another Welsh connection also, as The Lone Voice includes a link to a site that started life as started as an anti-racist football comic sold on the terraces of Cardiff City. But Urban 75, for some years now an excellent non-profit community site based in Brixton in south London, has a really useful feature Photographers Rights And The Law In The UK – A brief guide for street photographers.
Of course in this campaign, The Lone Voice is certainly not alone. Yesterday, after Lord Carlile’s statement, the Photographer Not A Terrorist organisation was deluged with requests for media interviews, and there were features on BBC programmes and elsewhere. There is a rather nice story too on the BBC Viewfinder blog, written by Phil Coomes, picture editor and photographer for the BBC News website.
*the word dhimmitude comes from dhimmi, the protection awarded in Muslim states to non-Muslims under Sharia law which lays down both rights and responsibilities, but dhimmitude is a term largely confined to extreme right anti-Muslim campaigners in Europe who concentrate on the repressive and sometimes extreme aspects of this involving the persecution of Christians, and refers to attitudes of some liberal Europeans in accommodating Muslim ideas and practices.
