PLEASE, Flood, carry on keeping your replies and posts short!! Why use 30 words when 3,000 will do, eh Jonesey!? 😀

The treatment she received is completely secondary to the resurrected 1952 legislation that led to her detainment.

As I said in my opening post, if you’re conned into believing that a nation is as “free” as it so often likes to proudly boast, when it requires journalists to declare themselves prior to entry, that’s fine: more fool you.

You’ve even pointed out the ridiculous flaw in their methodology above: just pitch up and say you’re there as a tourist….it’s what every Swedish nanny and au pair I knew in So Cal did; then they over-stayed for 2 or 3 years.

Still, at least the saving grace is that all good Christian Americans can sleep soundly in their beds knowing they are safe from “intelligence operatives” who might come knocking on their doors asking them awkward questions….unless the sneaky so-and-sos lie at the airport, of course! 😮

Steve

p.s. list of incidents in the USA follows. Personally speaking, the most worrying aspect is the repeated mention of denying these people their rights to consular access:

20 journalists arrested

Photographer Thomas Sjoerup, of the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, was deported in March 2003 after being held several hours at Los Angeles airport while police photographed and fingerprinted him and took DNA samples.

Gary Gaynor, a photographer with the weekly Tucson Citizen, was arrested on 5 March while covering the police expulsion of about 30 people demonstrating at the University of Arizona against the Iraq war. He showed his press card and refused to leave when ordered to by police, who arrested him and threatened to seize his equipment unless he signed a statement admitting he had trespassed on private property. He agreed and is being prosecuted for this.

Kurt Mälarstedt, sent by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter to cover Iraq war developments in the US, was arrested when he arrived at Washington DC airport on 20 March without a press visa. Before being deported, he was questioned, photographed and fingerprinted. He was not allowed to make any phone calls until all this had been done, preventing the Swedish embassy from intervening on his behalf.

Alexandre Alfonsi, of the French weekly Tele 7 Jours, was refused entry into the country on 10 May at Los Angeles airport for not having a journalist visa. Stephanie Pic and Michel Perrot, of the French weeklies Télé Poche and TV Hebdo, who had just passed through immigration without any problem even though they did not have such visas either, tried vainly to get an explanation. All three were then arrested and held for nearly 26 hours. They were freed the next day after being repeatedly questioned and body-searched six times. An official told Alfonsi he would never be allowed back into the country. The three journalists had come to report on a video games trade fair.

The same thing happened the next day to Thierry Falcoz, editor of the cable TV station Game One, and two of his cameramen, Alex Gorsky and Laurent Patureau, who were also on their way to the trade fair. They were detained until the next day and then put on flight back to France.

Swedish journalist Erik Hansson was arrested for not having a journalist visa when he arrived at Los Angeles airport on 13 May to report on the trade fair for several newspapers and magazines. Several colleagues who also did not have visas were not arrested. Hansson was kept in an unheated room and then questioned. Twelve hours later, he was taken in handcuffs to a police detention centre. The next day he was taken back to the airport where he was held in a cell for nine hours before being deported to Sweden.

Babette Wieringa and Anko Stoffels were arrested when they arrived at Los Angeles airport on 30 May to cover an award ceremony for world film stunt champions for the Dutch daily De Telegraaf. They did not know they needed a special visa, filled in a tourist entry form but told officials why they had come. They were not allowed to stay more than 12 hours at the airport and were taken to a prison in the city. They said they had been treated like criminals by the police.

Corey Kilgannon (reporter) and Librado Romero (photographer), of the daily New York Times, were arrested by the Coast Guard on 13 August for sailing in a boat into the security zone around New York’s Kennedy Airport. They were doing a report on three fishermen who had disappeared in the area the previous day. After warning them they risked up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine, the Coast Guard released Kilgannon but detained Romero because in 2002 he had been accused of riding a his bicycle on a sidewalk.

Rachael Bletchly, of the British weekly Sunday People, was arrested at Los Angeles airport on 9 October for not having a journalist visa and detained for 26 hours, during which she was not allowed to sleep or contact a lawyer or British consular officials. She had not been asked for such a visa on previous visits.

Celeste Fraser Delgado, of the weekly Miami New Times, was arrested on 20 November after interviewing demonstrators protesting against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at a conference in the city about it. She was accused of refusing to obey a police order and peacefully resisting arrest. She was freed the next day and the charges dropped. Police had arranged an “embedding” of journalists in the police to “assist” their coverage of the protest. Fraser Delgado said the arrangement, which she had refused to take part in, was an attempt to control press coverage. The Independent Media Center (IMC) said three freelance journalists were arrested during the demonstration.

Peter Krobath, sent by the Austrian monthly SKIP to cover a film première, was arrested when he arrived at Los Angeles airport on 2 December for not having a journalist visa. He was interrogated for five hours, searched, photographed and fingerprinted and then taken to a prison in the city where he was detained with criminals. He was deported to Austria the next day.