marc vallée

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 02.05.08. A civilian police photographer films and photographs working journalists outside City Hall on Friday 2 May 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2008.

This week the NUJ will be taking up the issue of police surveillance of journalists who regularly cover protests with Jacqui Smith at the Home Office. The British Journal of Photography got wind of this towards the end of last week and rang up for quotes from both NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear and I for an article for this weeks issue. Here are the quotes in full.

NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “The government must stamp out the routine and deliberate targeting of photographers and other journalists by the Forward Intelligence Team. Such actions undermine media freedom and can serve to intimidate photographers trying to carry out their lawful work. These abuses are the latest in an increasingly long list of infringements of media freedom at the hands of the Met Police. The rights of photographers to work free from threat, harassment and intimidation must be upheld”.

Photojournalist Marc Vallée said: “Press freedom is a central tenet of our democracy and it is extremely unpleasant to have Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) officers take notes, film and photography you when working. It begs the questions what legal, moral and political power such repressive actions are based on. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary needs to swiftly confirm that the police have no legal power to prevent or restrict working photographers in this way.”

I will post more later in the week once things start to move on this.