This is full-on censorship, but why?

Also from the article:
"Other MEN photographers were threatened with arrest if they did not delete images. They refused to remove their camera cards and no further arrests were made."

public land,privately owned??

Iv'e heard of a few photographers being stopped and confronted by security guards around Spinningfields. Apparently the area is privatly owned, so they were told and is not a public place ! If this is true it certainly is not signposted as such.

Stopped on plane

I was on a KLM flight to Delhi on Saturday when there was a call for any doctor on board and a rush of cabin staff to the rear of the plane.

I started photographing the commotion (not the ill or injured party who I couldn't even see) for the record and was soon ordered to stop by the crew. After it all ended (happily) I was the interviewed by the senior crew member. She said she'd never seen this happen before and asked my why I had done it.

I explained why it was important to have a photographic record even for contingency purposes and it shouldn't necessarily be seen in the context of sensationalism. That seemed to placate her and I didn't hear any more about it.

@Mike D

That's a great & succinct way to describe your actions. Well done.

"outside the court"?

It is an offence to photograph within the precincts of a court.

One rule for all not just Press Photographers.

The freedom to take photographs in a public place must never be just the domain of press photographers.

If this were allowed to happen we would be slowly but surely sliding into the police state we all fear.

It is important that when press photographers are arrested in this way that we don't fall into the trap of saying this should not happen to members of the press when we actually mean it should not happen to anyone who wishes to take photographs in a public place.

Shame on the Manchester Evening news for praising a senior member of Greater Manchester Police
The editorial continued: “Wiser judgement prevailed when senior officers became involved.

Don't they realise their photographer was only de-arrested because he was a press photographer if he had been an ordinary member of the public photographing lawfully in a public place then the outcome for that person would have been entirely different and that is the real problem here.

"de-arrest"

This is one bit of the Police arsenal that should be given the heave ho without delay. I'd never even heard of the notion of "de-arresting" someone until a couple of years ago, now it seems to be routine. It seems to be used primarily as a method of restraining someones actions by applying a set of rules that would not normally be available to the police in a minor incident, but doing it expressly when they have no intention of following through with the consequences and procedures normally (i.e. previously) associated with the use of powers arrest. Used in conjunction with the rather specious "breach of the peace" it gives the impatient copper a convenient and apparently "blameless" way of arbitrarily detaining someone without consequence, and with sufficient powers to run roughshod over their rights.

If "de-arrest" is to exist at all, its use should carry consequences and the need for an explanation and justification before a senior officer, Judge or independent adjudicator to be sure it doesn't become another misused tool on the lazy copper's Swiss Army knife.

It says nothing complimentary about the police that they seem increasingly unable to deal fairly and proportionately with situations while respecting the rights of the public, and without misusing laws in ways that were probably not the intent of their authors. It's crude, lazy policing with no justification that does simply increases the growing distrust and suspicion between police, public and of course the media.