There is growing support for AP?s campaign against measures that threaten photographers? right to take pictures in public.
This follows an announcement by London Mayor Ken Livingstone – backed by the Metropolitan Police – that photographers using digital cameras and camera phones to take pictures of children in London?s parks and other public spaces could be paedophiles.
The Mayor said parents should be vigilant and he is considering plans to put up signs across London to warn them of what he see as the potential dangers.
Many MPs revealed their objections to the plans after Austin Mitchell, MP for Great Grimsby, tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) in the House of Commons to garner the support of fellow politicians following our news story on the controversy (see AP news 11 June).
An EDM is a petition that allows MPs to express and publicise their opinions on given matters and gives fellow politicians the opportunity to support it.
Austin?s EDM ? tabled in the House of Commons on 6 June – attacks the moves as ?panic? measures against photographers taking entirely innocent pictures of children and young people in public places. He says these are ?unnecessary and unfair?, casting a ?slur? on photography and photographers, both amateur and professional.
To read the EDM in full – and for more reaction to this story – see next week?s AP, in shops on Tuesday 28 June.
