LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 24.01.09. A Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team sergeant grabs hold of a press photographer’s camera on a Gaza protest against the BBC on Saturday 24th January 2009 in London, England. Justin Tallis, a London based freelance photographer and NUJ and BPPA member, was photographing the anti-BBC protest. The BBC had refused to broadcast a charity appeal to raise emergency funds for people in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2009.

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Justin Tallis tells us what happened in his own words,

The police officer said, “let me have a look at that picture.” I said, “No”.  The police officer then said, “You’re not allowed to take photos of police officers”.  I then said, “Don’t be ridiculous of course I can take pictures of police officers”. The police officer then tried to take my camera from me.

After a bit of time I think the police officer realised he was in the wrong trying to forcibly take my equipment from me.  He then got very close to me, way into my personal space, and said again “you shouldn’t have taken that photo you were intimidating me”. I think that if Marc had not been there taking these photos the situation could have ended very differently.

Today we hand over the Blog to photojournalist Guy Smallman on his very personal account of a visit to the accident and emergency room at a Kabul hospital in Afghanistan last month.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – September 2008. Photojournalist Guy Smallman being treated at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan September 2008.  Published here by kind permission of Guy Smallman 2008.  (c) Guy Smallman 2008.

“I got injured on a shoot in Afghanistan.”  Sounds dramatic, but the reality was actually quite mundane.  Our car slid of a gravel road in one of Kabul’s suburbs.  A back-wheel drive, the rear right hand tyre was spinning in a pothole unable to get the grip required to move the vehicle forward.  So we kicked a selection of rocks and pebbles into the hole and got behind to push.  As the driver hit the gas the wheel spun one of the rocks straight into my shin and in a moment my trousers, trainer and sock were covered in claret pissing out of a deep cut.

Ghani my interpreter insisted that we go to a local hospital to get the wound properly cleaned and stitched.  I needed little persuasion after he went on to say that infections here often led to amputation.

A jovial Afghan Doctor commended my bravery as he snipped some fatty tissue from the wound and deep cleaned it with iodine solution.  I pointed out through Ghani that my failure to register any pain was due to the massive nerve damage sustained to my leg on a job in 2003.  The Doctor surveyed the 5 year old blast injury to the rear of my calf and asked if I got it here? Or maybe somewhere like Palestine? Or Iraq?  I then had to explain that I was blown off my feet in Switzerland by a Police concussion grenade while covering an anti G8 protest.

Immediately I became the laughing stock of Kabul A&E as the nurses, porters and even some of the other patients relatives filed through my room to laugh at the funny Englishman who got injured by an explosion in a country that has been at peace for 500 years.  As if I didn’t already have enough reasons to hate the cops in Geneva…

Note: And back in the UK Guy bitten by a police attack dog which required medical attention when covering a protest last week.