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.

Film: Press Freedom: ‘Collateral Damage’ – Current TV.

“NUJ film shows police obstruction of journalists” – National Union of Journalist.

Yesterday Jeremy Dear the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) moved a motion at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) live on the BBC Parliament Channel (59 minutes into this clip) in Brighton on the issue of civil liberties and  police surveillance and harassment of working journalists.

In his speech Jeremy Dear said: “This isn’t over-zealous policing this is a co-ordinated and systematic abuse of media freedom – and we must expose it, challenge it and act against those who undermine the rights of photographers, journalists and media workers”.

Along side this the NUJ has released a short film called Press Freedom “Collateral Damage” which tackles the issue of police surveillance of bona fide journalists who document political dissent.

The film, written and directed by my good friend and colleague Jason N. Parkinson, is a damming account of the Orwellian techniques and methods of the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) over the last few years.  The film is 9 minutes long and starts with footage of the 2006 Camp for Climate Action and ends with footage from the 2008 Camp for Climate Action.  This film includes evidence of the FIT targeting working journalists and footage of police attacking journalist when covering protests.  The film also has an interview with Jeremy Dear and photographers outside New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.

(At this point I should declare an interest as I’m the producer of the film and one of the photographers featured in it.)

PHOTOJOURNALIST Marc Vallée is interviewed outside New Scotland Yard at the Press Freedom Protest organised by the NUJ.  Published here by kind permission of Jonathan Warren 2008.  (c) Jonathan Warren 2008.

The FIT is a police unit that is trained to gather evidence at football matches, political protests and over the last year it has been used by officers in some parts of the country to target local youth on council estates for alleged anti-social behaviour.

Speaking after the TUC vote, Jeremy Dear, said: “Journalism is facing grave threats in an age of intolerance.  Whilst on the streets dissent is being criminalized, independent journalism is being increasingly caught in the civil liberties clampdown.”

PHOTOJOURNALIST Marc Vallée lies injured on the ground after the police forcibly cleared the road during the “Sack Parliament” demonstration on the 9th October 2006 at the opening of parliament, Westminster, London.   Published here by kind permission of Jess Hurd. (c)  Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk. 2006.

Below is the full text of the speech by Jeremy Dear.

“If you log on to the BBC’s website you can watch an excellent and dramatic picture gallery of Chinese police and soldiers physically restraining journalists and photographers, violently preventing them from working, preventing them accessing designated protest zones. Numerous stories across the media highlight China’s continuing denial of basic media freedoms.

“We welcome such abuses being highlighted, but they don’t just happen in China.

“If any of the media would like, I have a film here – a film which shows the abuses happening daily in the UK, in a society where protest is increasingly criminalized, where dissent is increasingly outlawed, where laws designed to tackle terrorism are increasingly used to undermine civil liberties.

“This film documents examples of police abusing their powers, of arbitrary arrest and detention, of photographers being physically attacked, of stop and search, of data and equipment being confiscated, of journalists and camera crews under surveillance by anti-terror teams – examples of the forces of an authoritarian government and the abuse and misuse of the law.

“The terrorising of journalists isn’t just done by shadowy men in balaclavas but also by governments and organisations who use the apparatus of the law or state authorities to suppress and distort the information they do not want the public to know and to terrorise the journalists involved through injunctions, threats to imprisonment and financial ruin.

“The use of the Terrorism Act and SOCPA increasingly criminalize not just those who protest but those deemed to be giving the oxygen of publicity to such dissent. Journalists’ material and their sources are increasingly targeted by those who wish to pull a cloak of secrecy over their actions.

“And so NUJ member Shiv Malik is woken by armed police, dragged to court, subjected to a production order and instructed to hand over his notes. His crime? He dared to interview a former member of an alleged terrorist organisation, dared to get behind the spin, to serve the public by exposing the truth – for that he is criminalized.

“Another member: Sally Murrer’s home was bugged, her computer seized by police. She was arrested, dumped in a cold cell for 24 hours, then strip searched. She faces the potential of years in jail.

“Sally’s crime? Nothing more than talking to a contact in the police force who told her about a prisoner released early who boasted of becoming a suicide bomber.

“The real crime is that the police have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a malicious prosecution. If they win it will become a crime for journalists to report what a police officer or any other public official tells them without authorisation. If they lose it will be a victory for free reporting and independent journalism.

“And photographers covering the climate camp just a few weeks ago, including some of those sat down here, are stopped and searched three times in one day, are followed by officers from the Forward Intelligence Team, subjected to intimidation and arbitrary and intrusive surveillance. Their crime? Simply documenting the activities of environmental campaigners.

“This isn’t over-zealous policing this is a co-ordinated and systematic abuse of media freedom – and we must expose it, challenge it and act against those who undermine the rights of photographers, journalists and media workers.

“And we must do so because if whistleblowers and sources fear speaking out, if photographers and journalists cannot probe the dark corners of business, politics or human rights, the ability of the media – already under threat from concentration of ownership and cost-cutting – to hold power to account, to expose wrongdoing, to provide the information on which citizens can make informed decisions about their lives will be seriously compromised.

“The Terrorism Act and SOCPA are not sophisticated security policies – they are the blunt instruments of an intolerant government.

“As if in some Orwellian nightmare the Ministry of Freedom tells us that the price we must pay for peace and liberty at home is not just a war in Iraq – not just the billions spent on war – but, in the wake of the London bombings, is the fingerprinting of council workers and the covert surveillance of M&S workers. It is ID cards and 42-day detention. It is curbs on the right to protest, the civil contingencies act and it is the extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, a snoopers’ charter giving access to personal texts, emails and internet use.

“The price is too high. Less liberty does not imply greater security. It never has.

“Our movement has been at the forefront of the great struggles for human and civil rights over the past century. In this age of intolerance new struggles must be waged and we must lead that fight.

“Support the motion.”

You can watch this via the BBC Parliament Channel (59 minutes into this clip).