Taking pictures is a crime?

Since i take pictures, is most about people. My first pictures from around 1974 shows my little Brother, my family and friends. Later on around 1978 i took pictures in public places like streets, trainstations and demonstrations. My first documentary was about the "AJZ Krawalle" in Zuerich. Later 1980 the "Grundsteinlegung" of the Childrenhome in Elgg. Allwais about people, their life, their happiness, their struggles.

All those years i took a lot of pictures of people everywhere, really a lot and never someone feel ofended or bothered by me.

By the time my geological radius of action become bigger and i experienced aversions against my photography in countries like Cambodia, China, Philippines, Korea and so on. What changes that some people dislike my Camera? Thats easy to explain i was on assignment in charge of a News agency and shot spot news. Of course not everybody was happy to realize i just took a picture of him.

Now in the present time i often have to face difficulties especially in europe about pseudo privacy and other weird stuff.

Let me explain few things. The pictures i usually take are often called "Streetphotography" but i"am not a great fan of such categorizing descriptions, i took such pictures long time before everybody use this therm.

The last few years i travelled around in the USA, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, i took tons of pictures and most are about People. Never ever i had any negative discussions until i"am back to europe and guess what happened. Few days in Belgium and i had an encounter with a raging middle east guy, which yelling and gesticulates in a language which i was not familiar to. It ends up that he called the police and they appear with an translator which helps out with arabic and english. This guy insist i delete the picture which isn"t that easy if you shoot film. After approx  30 minutes of a very noisy conversation he gave up and i promised the policmen that i won"t use this particular pictures for anything. Let me tell you, i didn"t took a picture of him but his shop. Something positive? I learned what "Kaffer" means.

Not even better in Zuerich, nearly everytime i go for a photowalk i encounter troubles with agressive people which feel very ofended by my action, even if i didn"t even took a picture of them. Hard to proof if you shoot film. At the fleamarket in Zuerich Bürkliplatz an middle east guy freaked out and grab my Rolleiflex, what let me answer violently in a selfdefense manner to stop him.

What is wrong in our european society, is taking pictures a crime? Europe quo vadis?

Btw. If someone ask me kindly not to take a photograph, i will respect that.