Athens, GA Man Jailed For Taking Photos: To all of our amazing UHH international travelers, please be careful and aware of photography restrictions in other countries!

mgstrawn Loc: Atlanta, GA

To all of our amazing UHH international travelers, please be careful and aware of photography restrictions in other countries!

http://www.11alive.com/videos/news/nation-now/2014/11/06/18577711/

catfish252

I hate this for this man and his family but people need to understand especially when traveling to foreign countries that you need to abide by their laws, In certain countries the laws are enacted and enforced by the religious leaders of the country and the government officials are only their spokesmen. This guy is a college professor at the Univ. of Georgia, he should have known better -- if the sign says "No Photography Allowed" that's pretty much what it means. Don't flaunt your disregard for the law by doing just that, otherwise you may end up in a desert prison and there is not a whole lot that our government can do for you.

mtparker Loc: Cape Charles & Springfield, Virginia

There are religious police, civil police, and (sometimes) military police in many Mideast countries.

You really need to be very careful. Not all restricted or off limits areas are posted clearly and briefings are not very helpful sometimes.

On one of my trips to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s I went to the ruins of Old Riyadh on a rare day off. As I was taking an image of a weathered door against the adobe-colored buildiings a woman and her son stepped through as the motor drive fired off a burst ... faster than I could react. The woman froze in fear and my driver went crazy berating me with the best English he could muster. Had their been many others around I'm sure it could have been real trouble.

Be careful!

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

This is not the first time Americans with a camera lose their ability to comprehend the words 'Photographs Prohibited.'

Visiting Vietnam in 2012 one of the 1st things I did was go to a Vietnamese Police Station and find out about photo restrictions. They had a military rep there also so I covered both at one time.

Military restriction was stated as "If it has military personnel or buildings it is forbidden." that was easy.

Sarge69

DrWilk Loc: .

You expect visitors to your country to obey the laws of your country so why wouldnt you obey the laws of a country you visit?

It's a shame for this man but in the end, it was his own fault.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

mgstrawn wrote:

To all of our amazing UHH international travelers, please be careful and aware of photography restrictions in other countries!

http://www.11alive.com/videos/news/nation-now/2014/11/06/18577711/

We landed at Athens airport in 1973. I had read in our publications where the Greeks forbid photography of any kind on any airport premise. We watched in amusement as a plane (civilian type) taxied past us with one of the pilots hanging out of his window using a camera. The polizia detained that A/C for quite a long time. Some countries put signs up and expect the citizens to obey. Kind of a novel idea!

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Just read a little more about this. According to the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2820753/American-grandfather-70-faces-five-years-jail-Arab-Emirates-taking-picture-no-photography-sign-held-secret-week-police-jail-diabetic-s-health-risk.html he was arrested, it seems, for taking a picture of...
get ready...

a sign...

no really you need to get ready for this...

a sign....

banning photography.

DrWilk Loc: .

Thats not quite right. He was taking a picture of a building that had a fairly prominent, "No Photography" sign attached to the surrounding wall. It wasnt the sign he was illegally photographing, it was the building.

mutrock

When I was 25, immediately post Generalissimo Francisco Franco's death, I was detained by the Madrid Police, who were actually the Spanish Army. The Police only gave parking tickets. The Army did everything else. One soldier stuck an Uzi in my back while two others grabbed me by each arm, stopped traffic, and dragged me across the multiple lanes and esplanades of the Avenida Generalissimo Francisco Franco. I was placed in the back of their car with one of the soldiers sitting next to me while the other two walked over to a poor guy they had previously stopped on the Avenue to search his car. They had removed all the seats and contents of the car and had them strewn along the side of the street as they searched for something they never found. They returned to the police car where the four of us drove off to the station. After about an hour of questioning, report filling-out, and film confiscation at the station they released me. I walked the three miles back to my hotel, pretty shaken. Good news was my walk took me past the futbol stadium and Real were playing Manchester that night so I took in the game. The reason they detained was that I was taking a picture of an old Spanish woman sitting in a sidewalk cafe with her lace fan in hand. In order to not alert her that I was snapping a photo of her I pointed the camera for a few seconds at a tree in her direction but at about a 45 degree angle to one side of her in order to focus. It turns out these soldiers were about 300 feet in the distance past the tree, unseen by me. They were in the process of tearing the seats out of that guy's car. They believed I was photographing them. Fortunately my command of Spanish is reasonably good and they let me go. At that time in Spain it was forbidden to take any photos of anything related to the Spanish military, including personnel, which I knew. the problem was that the military were omnipresent throughout Madrid, including standing guard everywhere at the Futbol game that night. They manned bullet-proof machine gun turrets overlooking every major square and intersection too. Moral of the story for me: Preserve and enhance the freedoms we have in the USA because the rest of the World throughout history have lived under an assortment fascist, communist, socialist, and all sorts of other "ists" that must resort to tyranny to maintain their positions of power. Giving up our rights to speak, act, and defend ourselves, as we are being badgered to do on a daily basis in this country, will land us in the same situation as that guy on the side of the road in Madrid with the contents of his car strewn all over. . . or worse.

wbstrong Loc: Lexington, Kentucky

mutrock wrote:

When I was 25, immediately post Generalissimo Francisco Franco's death, I was detained by the Madrid Police, who were actually the Spanish Army. The Police only gave parking tickets. The Army did everything else. One soldier stuck an Uzi in my back while two others grabbed me by each arm, stopped traffic, and dragged me across the multiple lanes and esplanades of the Avenida Generalissimo Francisco Franco. I was placed in the back of their car with one of the soldiers sitting next to me while the other two walked over to a poor guy they had previously stopped on the Avenue to search his car. They had removed all the seats and contents of the car and had them strewn along the side of the street as they searched for something they never found. They returned to the police car where the four of us drove off to the station. After about an hour of questioning, report filling-out, and film confiscation at the station they released me. I walked the three miles back to my hotel, pretty shaken. Good news was my walk took me past the futbol stadium and Real were playing Manchester that night so I took in the game. The reason they detained was that I was taking a picture of an old Spanish woman sitting in a sidewalk cafe with her lace fan in hand. In order to not alert her that I was snapping a photo of her I pointed the camera for a few seconds at a tree in her direction but at about a 45 degree angle to one side of her in order to focus. It turns out these soldiers were about 300 feet in the distance past the tree, unseen by me. They were in the process of tearing the seats out of that guy's car. They believed I was photographing them. Fortunately my command of Spanish is reasonably good and they let me go. At that time in Spain it was forbidden to take any photos of anything related to the Spanish military, including personnel, which I knew. the problem was that the military were omnipresent throughout Madrid, including standing guard everywhere at the Futbol game that night. They manned bullet-proof machine gun turrets overlooking every major square and intersection too. Moral of the story for me: Preserve and enhance the freedoms we have in the USA because the rest of the World throughout history have lived under an assortment fascist, communist, socialist, and all sorts of other "ists" that must resort to tyranny to maintain their positions of power. Giving up our rights to speak, act, and defend ourselves, as we are being badgered to do on a daily basis in this country, will land us in the same situation as that guy on the side of the road in Madrid with the contents of his car strewn all over. . . or worse.

When I was 25, immediately post Generalissimo Fran... (show quote)

:thumbup:

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

DrWilk wrote:

Thats not quite right. He was taking a picture of a building that had a fairly prominent, "No Photography" sign attached to the surrounding wall. It wasnt the sign he was illegally photographing, it was the building.

Deleted

Dan Gibson Photography Loc: Central Florida

mutrock wrote:

When I was 25, immediately post Generalissimo Francisco Franco's death, I was detained by the Madrid Police, who were actually the Spanish Army. The Police only gave parking tickets. The Army did everything else. One soldier stuck an Uzi in my back while two others grabbed me by each arm, stopped traffic, and dragged me across the multiple lanes and esplanades of the Avenida Generalissimo Francisco Franco. I was placed in the back of their car with one of the soldiers sitting next to me while the other two walked over to a poor guy they had previously stopped on the Avenue to search his car. They had removed all the seats and contents of the car and had them strewn along the side of the street as they searched for something they never found. They returned to the police car where the four of us drove off to the station. After about an hour of questioning, report filling-out, and film confiscation at the station they released me. I walked the three miles back to my hotel, pretty shaken. Good news was my walk took me past the futbol stadium and Real were playing Manchester that night so I took in the game. The reason they detained was that I was taking a picture of an old Spanish woman sitting in a sidewalk cafe with her lace fan in hand. In order to not alert her that I was snapping a photo of her I pointed the camera for a few seconds at a tree in her direction but at about a 45 degree angle to one side of her in order to focus. It turns out these soldiers were about 300 feet in the distance past the tree, unseen by me. They were in the process of tearing the seats out of that guy's car. They believed I was photographing them. Fortunately my command of Spanish is reasonably good and they let me go. At that time in Spain it was forbidden to take any photos of anything related to the Spanish military, including personnel, which I knew. the problem was that the military were omnipresent throughout Madrid, including standing guard everywhere at the Futbol game that night. They manned bullet-proof machine gun turrets overlooking every major square and intersection too. Moral of the story for me: Preserve and enhance the freedoms we have in the USA because the rest of the World throughout history have lived under an assortment fascist, communist, socialist, and all sorts of other "ists" that must resort to tyranny to maintain their positions of power. Giving up our rights to speak, act, and defend ourselves, as we are being badgered to do on a daily basis in this country, will land us in the same situation as that guy on the side of the road in Madrid with the contents of his car strewn all over. . . or worse.

When I was 25, immediately post Generalissimo Fran... (show quote)

Amen. We're quickly heading in that direction.