Freelance photographer Marc VallĂ©e is not having the best of times at Climate Camp in Blackheath, London. Following his complaints last week about the conditions placed on media by camp organisers, VallĂ©e, along with fellow freelancer Jonathan Warren, has today claimed to have been assaulted by camp members while trying to photgraph a confrontation between them and members of the Socialist Workers Party. The photographers claim that one individual attempted to take VallĂ©e’s camera, and that Warren, attempting to intervene, was kicked in the stomach.
In an open letter to the Climate Camp, Warren and Vallée said:
We ask the man who assaulted us to come forward and apologise and that the camps organisers unequivocally condemn his actions. We would also ask the Camp’s organisers to seriously consider their responsibility for the negative atmosphere they have created within their movement towards journalists.
The media are not your enemy, but nor should we be your implicit friends either. We are independent and will report all sides of the story truthfully without fear or favour and that should be what you want of us too.
