Section 44 is dead

It was with great joy I read this week that the European Court of Human Rights has rejected the Home Office's appeal which renders Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 illegal. This also means of course that anyone that has been stopped under these powers from 12 January now have a case.

The misuse of Section 44 by the Police Forces of the UK has been a subject I have felt passionately about, my own fisrt experience of the Police's disregard for photographers rights dates back to the early 1990's when covering a riot on the Ordsall Estate in Salford for regional press I was thrown into the back of a riot van despite my creditation as a bonafide newsgatherer.

Photographers are often considered a pretty lonely lot, so seeing the way Jess Hurd, Marc Vallee, the I'm a Photographer Not A Terrorist group, the BJP and NUJ have all worked together to campaign for photographers rights is something we all should be thankful for.