The UK foreign office has this advice about visiting “You should take precautions for your personal safety by avoiding political gatherings and demonstrations.”. I was taking some photographs of this event, not really sure what it was about at the time. Shortly after taking this photograph I was stopped by a plain clothes policeman asking what I was doing. Not knowing for sure if this was a genuine policeman I gestured for him to walk over to 3 uniformed police officers and asked them to verify that this man was indeed a police officer. they confirmed he was but I was now surrounded by 4 policeman! What was I doing? “Taking photographs”. Tried to explain I was just a tourist. the fact I was carrying a Nikon D5 probably didn’t help as it made me stand out. They were ignoring anyone else taking photographs with their phones. I mentioned that I was just doing the same. Outwardly I remained calm but inside thought this could go very badly, not a good start as I had only been in the country a couple of hours at this point. They made some phone calls and after about 10 minutes I was asked to leave the area. I complied with their requirement and stayed away from other demonstrations that I saw on other occasions.
