The District Court has previously decided that six media houses, including TT News Agency, should be forced to hand over photos and videos from the riot to the lead investigator, but that decision is now being overturned by the Court of Appeal for Skåne and Blekinge.
It concerns photo and video material taken in Rosengård on September 3-4, 2023. The prosecutor has claimed that the material is needed to investigate crimes committed that evening and during the night. The media houses, for their part, have cited source protection and argued that disclosure would threaten journalistic independence.
The Court of Appeal agrees with the district court that the European Media Freedom Regulation does not prevent media houses from being forced to release images, since the material is not covered by the confidentiality obligation for journalistic sources.
However, the Court of Appeal does not believe the prosecutors have sufficiently clarified which criminal suspicions remain to be investigated after the Rosengård riots.
This makes it impossible for the Court of Appeal to weigh the prosecutors' interest in obtaining the images against the media houses' interest in protecting their material.
