LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 14.06.11. Photographers Grant Smith & Marc Vallée launch the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! pamphlet at the AOP Gallery on Tuesday 14 June 2011 in London, England. (Photo by Jonathan Warren.) (c) Jonathan Warren, 2011. All rights reserved. Published here by kind permission of Jonathan Warren.

“A brief history” – PhotographerNotaTerrorist.org

Here are a few pictures from the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! pamphlet launch party held at the AOP Gallery last week. The launch was a great success. It was wonderful to meet so many interesting people. A big thank you goes out to the folks at INGMEDIA for getting us all a bit merry!

If you do not have a copy of the pamphlet yet click here.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 14.06.11. Documentary Photographer Marc Vallée, and one of the founders of I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! (Phnat), speaking at the Phnat pamphlet launch party at the AOP Gallery on Tuesday 14 June 2011 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Marshall. (c) Peter Marshall, 2011. All rights reserved. Published here by kind permission of Peter Marshall.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 14.06.11. The I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! pamphlet launch party at the AOP Gallery on Tuesday 14 June 2011 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Marshall. (c) Peter Marshall, 2011. All rights reserved. Published here by kind permission of Peter Marshall.

“Pamphlet Launch Party” – photographernotaterrorist.org

This is one event not to miss!

“Over the last few months we’ve been working on a pamphlet that celebrates the history of the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! campaign. We’re now proud to invite you all to it’s launch at the AoP Gallery at 7pm on the 14th June with free refreshments kindly sponsored by ING Media.”

Click here to read more.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 03.05.11. Around fifty photographers stage a flashmob on World Press Freedom Day outside London’s City Hall on Tuesday 3 May 2011 in London, England. The campaign group I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! organised the event to highlight the harassment of photographers by security guards on privately owned but publicly accessible areas of London. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2011. All rights reserved.

“Photographers gather to protest public photography restrictions” – British Journal of Photography.

“Architectural photographer makes City Hall protest” – Building Design.

“Snappers slam Canary Wharf photography laws” – The Docklands.

A few press clippings about the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! flashmob that took place outside London’s City Hall yesterday.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 03.05.11.  Around fifty photographers stage a flashmob on World Press Freedom Day outside London’s City Hall on Tuesday 3 May 2011 in London, England. The campaign group I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! organised the event to highlight the harassment of photographers by security guards on privately owned but publicly accessible areas of London. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2011. All rights reserved.

“City Hall Security Scarper” – photographernotaterrorist.org

Link: Click here to view more pictures.

Clients: Pictures are available for rights managed editorial licensing. High resolution images are available on request.

“Flashmob City Hall” – PhotographerNotaTerrorist.org

“Urban Space” – marcvallee.co.uk

“The physical space of most American and some European cities is becoming privatised. And in the process of this privatisation, deviants who defy defensive architecture are prohibited, demonised and excluded. A class war is being fought, at the level of space. Along with this recapitulation of space goes an extensive iconography; a semiotics of exclusion which is spreading…” – From City of Quartz by Mike Davis.

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! (Phnat) is organising a flashmob outside London’s City Hall on the Tuesday 3rd May 2011 at 12.30pm.

The event will take place on World Press Freedom Day and is supported by the London Photographers’ Branch of the NUJ.

The privatisation of public space is impacting on public photography. Private companies, with the backing of national and local government, are eroding the common law right of the citizen to take a picture in a public place.

For more information click here.

“Stop-and-search: ‘Business as usual’” – news.bbc.co.uk

Yesterday I was on Radio 4‘s Today programme to debate the new counter-terrorism stop and search power Section 47A. The new power came into force via an emergency remedial order on the 18 March 2011.

John Humphrys kept order as chief constable Andy Trotter of the Association of Chief Police Officers and yours truly debated the stop and search of photographers.

The show was running late and our discussion was cut short but this was the first time that the new power has been debated at a national level and on a show that reaches millions. So well worth getting up early for.

You can listen to it online here.

“April Branch Meeting: Dealing With Trauma” – londonphotographers.org

On Tuesday 26 April 2011 the London Photographers’ Branch of the NUJ will host a discussion on Dealing With Trauma. The meeting will start off with a documentary film. Gavin Rees from the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma and Associated Press photographer Lefteris Pitarakis will be leading the discussion.

For more information click here.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 16.02.09. Photographers stage a mass photo taking event outside New Scotland Yard on Monday 16 February 2009 in London, England. The event, called by the National Union of Journalists, marked the enforcement date of Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 which could prevent the media and public from taking pictures of the police. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2009. All rights reserved.

“ConDem Government brings in emergency terrorism power to stop & search” – marcvallee.co.uk

The following motion, proposed by yours truly, was passed overwhelming last night at the National Union of Journalists London Photographers’ Branch.

“This Branch is greatly concerned by the introduction of the emergency stop and search power Section 47A of the Terrorism Act 2000.

“This Branch agrees that police stop and search powers that do not require suspicion of an individual have and can impact on journalists right to report and record events.”

Now the Branch can start campaigning along with the I’m Photographer Not a Terrorist! campaign against this new stop and search power.

Watch this space!

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 05.04.08. A police photographer from the Metropolitan Police’s Forward Intelligence Team documents the contents of a sketchbook as police conduct a stop and search on a man and a women in Trafalgar Square, London, England on Saturday 5th April 2008. Pro-Tibet demonstrators arrive in London ahead of protests due to take place along the route of the Olympic Torch on Sunday 6th April 2008. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2008.

“PREVENTION AND SUPPRESSION OF TERRORISM – The Terrorism Act 2000 (Remedial) Order 2011” – legislation.gov.uk

Yesterday the government laid a written ministerial statement to both houses of Parliament. The emergency measure, “Prevention And Suppression Of Terrorism – The Terrorism Act 2000 (Remedial) Order 2011” brings back stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 from today.

Home Secretary Theresa May announced on the 26 January 2011 that the review of counter-terrorism powers made recommendation that the Government should consider whether the police needed new stop and search power more quickly.

Early this month Theresa May announced that, “given the current threat environment” she had “concluded that the police do need the powers more quickly” and that “the most appropriate way of meeting the legal and operational requirements concerning the counter-terrorism stop and search powers exercisable without reasonable suspicion is to make a remedial order” in the “interests of national security”.

The remedial order replaces Sections 44 to 47 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and with Section 47A.

From today Section 47A will give a “senior police officer” the power to seek an authorisation from the Home Office in “relation to a specified area or place” if the officer “reasonably suspects that an act of terrorism will take place” and “considers that the authorisation is necessary to prevent such an act.”

If authorisation is given a “constable in uniform” will have the power “to stop a pedestrian” without any reasonable suspicion in the specified area and to search them and “anything carried by them”.

This emergency measure brings back stop and search powers that could impact on photographers and journalists right to report and the right of a citizen to make a picture in a public place.

The timing should not go unnoticed, the largest protest against the governments austerity measures and enforced transfer of billions of pounds from the public sector to the private sector will be taking place on the 26th March 2011.

In January I told the British Journal of Photography:

“The devil is always in the detail, and after reading the Home Office review it is clear that the coalition government is planning to give the police new stop-and-search powers to get around the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling. I do not think for one minute that these new powers will protect photographers from harassment and abuse from the police on the streets of Britain, far from it.”

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 03.03.11. Journalists and media workers demonstrate outside the Department of Culture Media and Sport, to oppose Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bid to buy the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, on Thursday 3rd March 2011. The National Union of Journalists said that the decision, by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, to allow News Corp to take full control of BSky was bad news for democracy and media plurality. Some 333,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the buyout and the Guardian Media Group, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Mirror and BT also oppose the News Corp bid. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2011. All rights reserved.

“It’s a whitewash – What a way to decide media policy! -Stop the Murdoch power grab for BSkyB” – Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Clients: This picture is available for rights managed editorial licensing. High resolution image available on request.