FOI 213685
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 213685
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 29th November 2022. Please find below the response to your request:
Please disclose to me the amount of people arrested by your constabulary whose occupation was listed as journalist, reporter, correspondent, columnist, writer, or blogger - or however this is logged within your organisation at time of arrest - during any policing of protest action that your officers attended within the last three years 2020, 2021, 2022.
I do not need the names of those arrested, or their organisations, but I would like to include anyone taken into custody or who had equipment seized from them during these protests, be they covid, climate, women's rights, anti-military, far left/right, black lives matter or any other major relevant protest across this timeframe. This would include people who were ultimately released without charge subsequent to being arrested - a famous recent example would be Hertfordshire police arresting a journalist from LBC for covering the Just Stop Oil protests.
I'd also like to know the percentage of these instances in which further action either was or was not taken if possible.
Reply
There have been 0 people arrested by West Mercia Police whose occupation was listed as journalist etc during any policing of protests between 2020 and 2022