A volunteer-operated media outlet is decrying the arrest of one of its volunteer journalists at a protest opposing
the CANSEC military trade show
in Ottawa on May 28.
The North Star, an independent media organization, said Ramona Murphy was one of the 13 individuals arrested by the Ottawa Police Service during demonstrations that sought to disrupt
the annual major arms show
.
In a news release, the organization said Murphy was videorecording police at the time of her arrest.
Of the 13 protesters arrested, 12 were detained near the EY Centre,
where CANSEC was being held
.
The protest had blocked Uplands Drive, though the street reopened later.
Another demonstrator was later arrested in a separate demonstration in front of OPS headquarters on Elgin Street.
The North Star said police threatened Murphy with mischief and resisting arrest charges, but she was released without charge eight hours later.
“Arresting a journalist, whether a volunteer or not, is a frontal attack on press freedom,” the news release added.
Bruno Le Héritte, a spokesperson for The North Star, said citizen journalists were recognized “as important as any other journalist.”
“I think everyone who tries to reveal the truth about the world is important,” he said. “When we say people say we are in a democracy, then we should prove that.”
In 2021,
Darnella Frazier won
a Pulitzer Prize for her recording of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., which set off a global reckoning on racial injustice and police brutality.
Le Héritte said those who were doing their job documenting protests shouldn’t have to worry about the risk of arrest.
The Ottawa Police Service could not confirm whether or not there was an exclusion zone set up for media during the protests against CANSEC. An exclusion zone is a practice by police to place journalists in a specific area and away from a police operation.
In an interview, Murphy said that, if there was an exclusion zone, it was “difficult to ascertain where it was” given how quickly the police formations shifted.
Murphy also said she was one of the first people arrested and had the phone she was using to record knocked out of her hand before she was pulled away from the demonstration and handcuffed.
She said her arrest was going to make her “think twice” about what kind of images she would risk capturing when she was working in the field as a journalist.
It was a “shame because the images you can get up close are going to give you a lot more information about the behaviour of the police and the nature of the repression than something that you get from afar,” she added.
“I’m going to be a lot more worried the next time, though, because it was not a fun day being in custody for about eight hours. It was nerve-wracking.”
In a statement, the OPS said other news outlets “did not report experiencing issues at the Uplands Drive or Elgin Street demonstrations.”
The police service also confirmed that eight of the 13 people arrested had been charged and that investigations remained “ongoing.”
Other journalists have also been detained by Canadian police in recent years.
Brandi Morin, a journalist for Ricochet Media, an investigative online news outlet, was arrested last year for reporting on a police operation at a homeless encampment in Edmonton.
In 2020, journalist Jerome Turner was arrested by the RCMP during a
Wet’suwet’en blockade protesting the Coastal GasLink project
in northern British Columbia. Five years later, the RCMP apologized.
Le Héritte is demanding a similar apology.
“We want answers,” Le Héritte said. “We want the Ottawa police to say why they did that and to do a public apology.”
