The video was released the day after the TUC in Brighton condemned the erosion of civil liberties and media freedoms in Britain. TUC unions unanimously backed a motion, proposed by the National Union of Journalists, which called for a rethink of government policies that put journalists at risk of imprisonment just for doing their job.
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=910
http://current.com/items/89284474_press_freedom_collateral_damage
Speaking after the TUC vote, NUJ General Secretary 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.”
The nine-minute video, called Press Freedom: Collateral Damage, includes examples of the police obstructing journalists in their work.
Release of the film follows numerous complaints from media workers who have experiences of the police going beyond their powers in attempting to restrict the ability of journalists to do their work. The NUJ’s motion to the TUC was part of a wider campaign for a greater recognition of press freedom by the UK government.
The motion also highlights cases of journalists, such as Robin Ackroyd and Shiv Malik, who have faced the threat of jail because of legal demands to reveal confidential source information.
In his speech to Congress, Jeremy Dear drew attention to the case of Sally Murrer, who is facing criminal prosecution for receiving information from a police source, and highlighted the problems faced by journalists attempting to cover the recent Climate Camp in Kent.
Jeremy said: “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.”
The speech concluded: “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.”
Speech by Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary to TUC Congress, moving motion13 on civil liberties.
“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”.
BBC Parliament Channel (59 minutes into this clip)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dhl6r/b00dhl6m/
Motion 13 – Civil liberties – as adopted at the Trades Union Congress on Monday 8 September 2008
Congress expresses its concern at the steady erosion of civil liberties in the UK and in particular the negative impact such attacks have on members’ working lives.
Congress congratulates unions who have resisted the imposition of draconian measures in the workplace and unions who have worked with civil liberty campaigners to expose the wider threat posed to civil liberties, including plans for ID cards, 42-day detention and limits on the right to protest.
Congress also expresses its grave concern at the threats to independent journalism and academic freedom posed by the Terrorism Act and other recent legislation. In particular, Congress condemns the threat to jail journalists such as Shiv Malik and Robin Ackroyd for protecting journalistic sources. Congress also condemns the use of the Terrorism Act to restrict the rights of academics and students to research and study terrorist tactics (as occurred at the University of Nottingham in May).
Congress recognises the importance of a free media in a democratic society, the essential function fulfilled by whistleblowers and the vital public interest in upholding journalists’ rights not to reveal their sources.
Congress also recognises the importance of academic freedom in guaranteeing a robust democracy.
Congress condemns attempts to use the Contempt of Court Act, Terrorism Act and other legislation to compel journalists to betray confidential sources in breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Congress urges the General Council to take a lead and work with affiliates to support legal and industrial challenges to defend civil liberties and the right of members to work free from such threats.
NUJ
- Homepage: http://www.nuj.org.uk
