SVT reporter Kovan Alshawish was on site at the police house in Rinkeby together with his colleague to photograph clippings for a feature. Then several police officers came up to him and prevented him from filming and detained him at the scene.
"They started questioning who I was and why I was there," he says.
He showed his press leg and showed them the car with the SVT logo where his colleague sat and explained that they would take some clipping pictures for a feature. The officers grabbed his wrists, took his camera away from him and demanded to review the contents of the camera.
"In the beginning, I thought it was a misunderstanding. But there was no misunderstanding. They knew I was a journalist," Kovan Alshawish said.
JO takes the incident seriously
Jo is now criticizing the Police Authority for the intervention, noting that there were no legal prerequisites for intervening against the journalists for criminal investigation purposes and for seizing the camera.
"JO takes the incident seriously and criticizes the Police Authority for it," JO writes in the decision, also noting that Kovan and his colleague were hindered in their work and that freedom of acquisition has been violated.
JO also criticizes the fact that the police have not documented the incident.
"Furthermore, the lack of documentation can be perceived as meaning that the executives involved wanted to cover up the wrongful intervention," JO writes in the decision.
Knowledge gaps
Geronimo Åkerlund was the publisher and editorial director of SVT Stockholm at the time and he believes that the police's intervention indicates knowledge gaps among police officers.
"They need to know what they can and can't do, and what the laws look like. If anyone should know, it's the police," he says.
He is positive about JO's decision and hopes that the police will now take on board the criticism.
Ola Österling, press secretary for the Police Authority, writes in an email to Kultur nyheterna that the police in the Stockholm region have taken note of JO's decision and have begun an analysis of its parts. He also writes that they take seriously the criticisms made by JO.