Mass Photo Gathering in Defence of Street Photography

12 Noon. 23 January.
Trafalgar Square.

Stop-and-search powers, under the Terrorism Act 2000, without grounds for suspicion has been ruled as illegal by the European Court of Human Rights. The Court ruled that the legislation ‘..had not been curbed by adequate legal safeguards so as to offer the individual adequate protection against arbitrary interference’.

This legislation has impacted on many photographers while working in a public place.
Thousands of photographers are set to gather in London on Saturday 23rd January to take mass action to defend their right to photograph after a series of high profile detentions under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. These included the detention by seven police of an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London http://photographernotaterrorist.org/2009/12/didnt-you-get-the-memo/, the arrest of a press photographer covering a protest at City Airport http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1439 and the Stop & Search of a BBC photographer outside St Paul’s Cathedral. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/warning-do-not-take-this-picture-1833127.html

Our society's visual history is under threat of extinction by aspects of anti-terrorism legislation. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act has in effect ended the confidence of the citizen to engage in the act of photography in a public place as photographers, artists and illustrators, amateur and professional are harassed by police invoking terrorism legislation to stop and search them. The act of documenting our street scenes and public life, our built environment, whether iconic or not, is now considered to be an act of hostile reconnaissance and could result in the detention of the image-maker.

The Mass Photo Gathering has been called by the campaign group I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! which has over 9000 followers on Facebook.

More info at http://photographernotaterrorist.org/