Sarah attends "I'm a photographer, not a terrorist" protest at Trafalgar Square (Barking and Dagenham Borough Liberal Democrats)

Barking and Dagenham Borough Liberal Democrats <barkinganddagenham@libdems4london.org.uk>

Sarah attends "I'm a photographer, not a terrorist" protest at Trafalgar Square

January 23, 2010 12:00 PM
Originally published by Sarah Ludford MEP

Sarah having her fingerprint taken during her "mock arrest" conducted by the "Vigilance Committee"

On Saturday 23 January Sarah attended a protest at Trafalgar Square entitled 'I'm a photographer, not a terrorist'. The gathering, organised among others by photographer Grant Smith, was called because the police are increasingly using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop, search and sometimes arrest people taking photographs as part of their normal tourist or professional business. There have been concerns in London about the City of London police and the Met police abusing these powers and indeed the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights said that these powers are too extensive and being used in an arbitrary manner.

Sarah said:

"The police seem to be working on the assumption that anyone taking a photo might be a terrorist - innocent until proven guilty, it would appear. This is a shocking distortion of counter-terrorism legislation, and must be bought to a stop. In order to highlight this, activists conducted a 'mock arrest' of me at the protest, which can be viewed at the link below. Of course the excercise was such that I couldn't stop giggling, but a serious point was being made and understood about not only the absurdity but also the danger of this abuse of authority."