The Greek photographer Pericles Antoniou from Athens Greece, was arrested in London England during the Greek Orthodox Easter for taking photographs of a girl in the London Metro.
Mr. Antoniou, who has a 25-year experience in artistic photography, was sent to jail, shoeless and was not allowed to communicate with any of his family; he is expected on a hearing soon this month.
Mr. Antoniou is also a member of Greek Caravan of Solidarity, which was featured in
?VXS.gr (BETA) - TV ????? ??????
As he claims in his letter to the Greek Ambassador in England, he was visiting London England due to the Greek Easter seasons, and as a “tourist” he took his camera and rushed to the streets of the British capital city seeking themes to shoot. While on the subway, the mother of a child complained about the fact that he was taking photos of her underage daughter. Mr. Antoniou apologised to the mother and erased all photos which depicted her daughter. However, the father of the youngster was not satisfied with this, and on the next train station asked for the help of police officers, who arrested the Greek visitor.
”They arrested me and locked me up on the cell of the local Police Station, they deprived of every rights I had; they neither allow my wife to visit me on the cell nor my 14 year old son and his friends; and I was under a strict solitary confinement during the night. After taking all my personal belongings: my watch, my shoes, and my cell phone, they finally seized my camera”, Mr. Antoniou explains.
The next day, Good Friday, the Greek photographer was brought on court where he was told that he is accused under the Public Order Act 1986 (sections 5,1 and of Act 6) because he might have caused “public harassment, alarm or distress”. The 53 year old man confirmed that he did not have anything to do with all these. The hearing is on 18th May.
See some of his work here:
http://photocircle.gr/component/option,com_uhp2/task,viewpage/Itemid,68/user_id,65/lang,en/