In the UK, photography=antisocial

In another fine example of anti-photography harassment, a Lancashire photographer was arrested for taking photographs. “Because of terrorism” and “photography is suspicious” were some of the reasons expressed by police in the photographer’s tape of the incident, in this article in The Guardian.

I have seen this many times when visiting the UK: Big Brother does not like photography except when He is doing it.

The photographer in this incident was polite and articulate and knew the law. It is indeed incumbent on us photographers to stop this escalation of nonsense.

0 thoughts on “In the UK, photography=antisocial

  1. After suffering through the entire “biased” video, I believe that the guy would have saved himself a lot of hassle if he had just provided his name and let it be run through the database. There are unsavory people out there that take advantage of children’s events to take photos. I fully support the police in this matter especially when approaching two males taking amateur photos of an event that is clearly not their own children.

    Oh and if you have nothing to hide then what difference does it make? 8 hours in a cell of difference to this guy, I suppose!

  2. Well, he is making a point, and I might make the same point. If photographers need to be interrogated by police every time they go out, we’re making a society that is more like East Germany’s than like a place I’d like to live. What harm does photography do? None. Ditto photography of children. And did you notice how the cop first blamed “terrorism”, and then switched to “suspicious” only after that did not work?

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