injured photographer

[bds1]

http://www.uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=70794&group

=webcast

 

UK photographer Guy Smallman was injured while shoting the

G8 summit in Geneva. I've worked alongside him on a number of

occations and he's a really nice chap. get well soon Guy

 

 

B

[wingell]

Brian: How did he get injured?

[bds1]

from indymedia

 

"The witnesses stated that as he ran up a stone staircase to

escape the charging Police, an officer behind him took aim and

fired a sucession of concussion grenades right at him.

 

One of them exploded on the back of his leg causing serious

injuries which needed two hours of emergency surgery. A

witness has suggested that the Police were very unhappy about

him taking pictures of their actions before and during the

build-up to the attack."

[wingell]

Nothing has changed.

[ray .]

In Geneva? G8 summit? Please excuse my ignorance, but could you provide some background as to why this happened? Looks as if one response on the website you provided thought he got what he deserved. Of course, I'm not agreeing with this, but what's the story as you know it?

[bds1]

have a look here

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2954964.stm

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2960016.stm

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2954190.stm

[h._p.]

There seems to be an upsurge of violence against the media in general as the police and military sense that politicians will stand by their excesses instead of condemning them.

 

We watched a BBC programme last night about Al Jazeera and the way the Americans first threatened them, and then carried out the threat by killing four Al Jazeera employees. It was rather spine chilling. I'm curious to know if this particular atrocity or any of the others carried out by the U.S. military in Iraq has been reported in the U.S.

[terrestrikon]

Harvey, only in the alternative media and that's mainly on the internet. Why do you think Sean Penn thought it was worth it to spend a quarter of a million bucks for an anti-imperialism ad in the Times? He must have felt that the mainstream media simply wasn't presenting an important point of view. Now, of course, with further consolidation of media giants in the offing there will be even less coverage of unwelcome news. Or take another example, the Jessica affair. We had to rely upon BBC reports to learn of it, and while it has been reported in mainstream venues it hasn't been covered fully. (That's the US soldier captured by the Iraqis -- seems the story of her capture and rescue was invented almost entirely out of whole cloth -- no firefight before capture, no torture after capture, no Iraqi guards blocking her rescue -- and that, moreover, the Iraqis had sent her in an ambulance to the front lines to try to return her, only to be shot at. But that's what happens when you have a pervasive government ethos of lying; it will seep down to the working level eventually. As one columnist put it today, aptly, I think, we're witnessing the 'Enronization' of Washington.)

[david_carson]

Ok, I thought, "concussion grenade, ah, they seem bad, but they

probably make a loud noise, that's it."

 

Boy, was I wrong.

 

It blew off half of his calf muscle! What are police using

GRENADES for?! What happened to shields and billy clubs?

[bobby_hudgins]

The French police will jump at you even for pointing a camera vaguely in their direction. They also receive completely different (higher) level of respect from the French people than do American police and our population, and wield power and intimidation first--and it works well. I was going to say that I can't imagine how they would react to a high stress situation, but I guess that this incident answers that for me. It is terrible that he was hurt while doing his job.

[bobby_hudgins]

And George, your comments are sobering and scary. All too true.

[h._p.]

George, I'm afraid I'm beginning to wonder if I've stumbled into an episode of Babylon 5 or something. Today, the British government has been accused of lying to Parliament about the extent of the danger from Iraq. Tony Blair has refused to accept a public enquiry saying that the Parliamentary Security Committee is investigating the issue. This committee has six Labour members, two Conservative members and one Liberal member and is chaired by, wait for it, the former chief whip of the Labour Party.

 

Oh yes, it publishes reports but those reports are censored because it would never do for the electorate to know what our masters are up to.

 

I have this horrible feeling that both our countries are on the brink of something really nasty.

[ralph_barker]

Harvey, it seems to me that the problem is that we seldom get the whole story in situations like the Al Jazeera incident. It seems we get only one perspective in one report, countered by an opposing perspective in another, with neither side fully investigating the situation and reporting all of the facts. As reported here in the U.S., the U.S. military patrol came under fire, apparently from the hotel room that the Al Jazeera people were occupying. Some reports suggested that persons questioned in the hotel said they didn't hear any gunfire from the Al Jazeera room, but those reports were inconclusive. Certainly, a more thorough approach to the journalism would seem appropriate. I'd be curious, for example, what the conclusions in the BBC piece were on their investigation into whether the Al Jazeera employees were actually Al Qaeda operatives functioning as journalists. (Al Jazeera's frequent presentation of the Al Qaeda perspective as fact without verification or investigation makes one wonder whether the organization had been infiltrated by Al Qaeda or is simply its public (dis?) information department.)

 

Perhaps we all need to apply the same "grain of salt" to media presentations that seems to be applied to government or military reports. A thorough journalist, for example, might question why the military personnel, if it was their intent to kill the Al Jazeera employees, would fire into the hotel (filled with other journalists) instead of luring the Al Jazeera people to a secluded location where their "demise" could be attributed to Baath Party fire. The logic is truly mind-boggling.

[jorn ake]

The Reporters sans frontiers site (http://www.rsf.org/) can provide good information about the plight of free press worldwide, though sometimes the tone can run a little high. And most of the Gulf War 2, I watched Magnum photos site (http://www.magnumphotos.com/) and Getty Images (http://newsandsport.gettyimages.com/) for images produced (often minutes earlier) but not picked up by news services. Somehow, politicians have successfully captured the rhetoric and persuaded the public that objectivity is reactionary, marginalizing reporters or anyone who might not take what government offers as the gospel. The old us against them trick. Scary how well it works.

[kevin_baker___heidelberg_]

I have my cynics hat on tonight.

 

Don't believe the government.

Don't believe the press or media.

Don't believe the rumors you hear.

Don't believe the stuff you read on the Internet.

Don't be influenced by your family or friends.

Don't expect to be over or under impressed by anything.

 

What a boring, ill-informed existence we can lead...

[vic_.]

Rupert Murdoch, an Australian, has ruined free speech in the US. If you look at the Fox News Channel, with the exception of Bill O'Reilly, it is a 24 hour infomercial on the glory of US military dominance and the idiocy of the rest of the world, the French in particular. Then you go to the liberal channels and you get the opposite view. Where is there any objectivity?

[h._p.]

Ralph, the BBC's report came across as an honest, warts and all documentary and the Al Jazeera team emarged as independent minded pros (with one exception who, the the programme stated at the end, was 'changing his career'). The hotel incident was just one part of the programme and from the footage shown there seemed to be no indication that there had been any firing from the hotel.

 

The programme also put the lie to American claims that the people massacred in the market place were the victims of an Iraqi weapon. It also showed other civilians hit by American weapons and the American spokesman's outright denial that they were responsible. An interesting part of the programme was when Al Jazeera showed footage of American soldiers captured by the Iraqis, after, it should be noted, the American broadcasters had shown footage of Iraqi prisoners. The 'world's biggest democracy' retaliated by shutting down Al Jazeera's offices at the stock exchange and NASDAQ.

 

I was very impressed with the Al Jazeera people shown, they looked like the sort of people it would be an honour to work with. The American military and politicians, on the other hand, came across as the sort of people who I wouldn't invite to tea.

[h_gurung]

Hudgins, what has the french police to do with this incident in Geneva ? As far I know,

Geneva is in Switzerland while the G8 was in Evian, France.

Good wishes to Mr. Smallman.

[ralph_barker]

Thanks for the additional details, Harvey. It sounds like you've confirmed my point - two decidedly different representations without a whole lot of even-handed investigative reporting. Did the report aired on BBC, for example, look into what would cause the U.S. military patrol to fire on the hotel unless, as they stated, they had come under fire? Or, was the point of the piece that the low-ranking soldiers who fired on the hotel had been brain-washed by their fascist military commanders into firing on innocent civilians without provocation? As an aside, I don't recall seeing any footage produced by the U.S. Military showing the faces of Iraqi prisioners and fed to the press. If memory serves, the footage showing the faces of the U.S. prisoners was done by the Iraqi military (presumably at the direction of the Iraqi dis-information officer who made such a clown of himself), and was sent to Al Jazeera for airing, which they did without hesitation. But, perhaps I missed the part of the Al Jazeera report where they mentioned that the film produced by the Iraqi military violated the Geneva Convention, just as I missed their coverage of Sadam killing thousands of Iraqis who disagreed with him.

 

My point is that when a "news documentary" - even one produced by BBC - fails the logic test, we ought not to be timid about questioning the motivations and objectivity of the "journalists" who produced the piece.

[terrestrikon]

Actually, there are a couple good reasons to disbelieve the US representation of what happened with the tank and the hotel. For one thing, French TV had been filming the tank for several minutes, and there's no indication on the film, no sounds or images, that any firing from the hotel or its vicinity is going on. Secondly, the veteran UK war correspondent Robert Fisk happened to be driving along the river near the hotel at the time of the tank incident, and heard no firing of any kind in the vicinity prior to the tank letting loose on the hotel.

 

Basically, US military murder of journalists. Which could only have been interpreted as a vendetta and a warning by those journalists left as witnesses.

[tony_brookes]

French authorities are so different from the UK and maybe the US that you really should experience it. Recently my wife openly video'd French customs officers whilst we were returning to the UK from Le Mans. Five hours later, four of which were spent in metal handcuffs with our arms behind our backs, they eventually decided we hadn't done anything wrong but would not release us till we had paid them £300. I have been told by an eminent French/English lawyer that French police and customs officers are riddled with thuggery and short of IQ. Incidentally we were both over 60 years old at the time.

[h._p.]

Well, Ralph, I can't see that any part of the documentary failed the logic test. The footage of Iraqi prisoners was shown here and I saw it myself - at the time it was pretty hard to avoid if you tuned in to British T.V. news. The footage of the American prisoners was aparently taken by Al Jazeera's own crews, not by the Iraqi military.

 

I would be the last to say that Sadam Hussein was anything except a nasty thug but this documentary indicated just how much propaganda was put out by the U.S. and the U.K. during this war and was a reminder, if a reminder was needed, that this was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

The truly fascinating thing about the documentary, which I really should have pointed out earlier, was that, long before the end of hostilities, Al Jazeera was under attack by both sides for its reporting. This, it seems to me, is the ultimate accolade to its impartiality. If both sides hate you, you must be doing something right.

[bill_g2]

<p>Going back to the original message regarding the injured photographer...

 

<p>I live in Geneva. The G8 meeting itself was in France, but Geneva is the nearest big city, so Geneva seemed to take the brunt of the protest violence. It was really a shame to see the video footage of protestors breaking out store windows and firebombing them with Molotov cocktails. Switzerland isn't even in the G8.

 

<p>I am truly sorry to learn that this photographer was injuried.

 

<p>I really wanted to go down to the protests and take some photos, but concern over this kind of incident was exactly the reason I didn't. If I were a professional photojournalist and it was my job, then of course I would have been there. But as an amateur photographer, I didn't want to risk getting swept up into a violent mob just for the sake of snapping a few shots.

 

<p>Learning about this incident convinces me that I did the right thing.

[Allen Herbert]

The power of photography has become well known! In many ways more powerful than the gun! There lies the answer my friends.

[Jeffrey L.T. von Glück]

Unfortunately, photojournalists--and the working press in general--are seen in a much more adversarial light by the authorities than in the past, especially the cop on the street. In the 1960s and 70s in New York City--when I was in college there--there were all the campus sit-ins, demonstrations, etc., and police generally left the press and photographers alone while covering the ruckus; the cops wouldn't purposely go after a photographer with a nightstick. If they got too close and got whacked in the confusion, that was one thing, but they were never targeted. At least that's how I remember it and a retired NYPD cop uncle of mine confirms it. Hell, the reporters and photographers used to hang out at the precinct and were often given the heads up on where to go if there was wind of a protest in the air. Things have certainly changed. Much more dangerous for the working pro.