By Guest Blogger | February 21st, 2012 By Larry Siems
Last week, director Doug Liman—whose blockbuster features include The Bourne Identity, Fair Game, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Swingers—sent out this call for citizen-shot footage for his next movie, Reckoning With Torture:
Ten years after the first prisoners arrived at Guantánamo, not one senior official has been called to account for the torture and abuse of detainees there, in secret CIA prisons, or in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not one of those who was abused has received an apology or restitution for his treatment. And none of the courageous servicemen and women who stood up to stop the abuse have received the public recognition they deserve. The United States, a leading proponent of accountability for human rights abuses internationally, now offers its own model of how not to confront and reckon with torture.
Liman’s film project aims to change that. A collaboration with the ACLU and PEN [...]
Continue reading Reckoning With Torture: A Call for Citizen Video Participation
By Guest Blogger | January 31st, 2012 Amy Robbins
By Amy Robbins Amy Robbins is a member of the WITNESS Board of Directors and was the 2011 Focus for Change Benefit Dinner and Concert Co-Chair.
As WITNESS celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, I wanted to write a brief note to describe why I support this outstanding, and vital organization. I know many of you reading this share my view because you, too, strongly support WITNESS’s efforts.
WITNESS has always been known as an organization that promotes the use of video to support human rights campaigns. But with the Cameras Everywhere initiative, WITNESS is moving in a very new, very bold direction – reaching beyond basic activism to partner with allies in business, technology and media to foster a more conducive environment for the safe and effective use of video.
WITNESS has learned that it is one thing to capture human rights abuse on video, and [...]
Continue reading Amy Robbins: Join Me In Supporting WITNESS For the Next 20 Years
By Guest Blogger | January 27th, 2012 By Tessa Fallon
The web has given human rights organizations unprecedented access to global audiences. However a website will last only as long as funds are available for maintenance and hosting. Leaving aside practical challenges which exist for every website, in many places there is also the possibility of sabotage or attempts to remove a human rights-related website by opponents, religious, ideological, governmental or otherwise. Examples include denial-of-service attacks or in the most extreme case, the cutoff of all Internet service providers (the Internet “kill” switch).
Web Archiving
In 2009, Columbia University Libraries received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to explore web archiving program development. The collection at the center of our web archiving program is the Human Rights Web Archive. The initial and prevailing focus of this collection is websites of human rights NGOs. As the project progresses, we have also included national human rights institutions, truth commissions, [...]
Continue reading Archiving Human Rights on the Web
By Guest Blogger | January 26th, 2012 By Chris Rogy
Why You Should Watch this Video
On Sunday December 11, 2011 The New York Times published an extensive article illustrating the role of livestream technologies in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The following day, seventeen mediamakers, including members of the Global Revolution livestream team were arrested. Since then, police have increasingly targeted members of independent media and citizens with cameras and media-making equipment, seemingly in order to quell future representations of police brutality and to suppress further momentum of the movement.
What does this all mean? One possible answer points to the power of citizen media asserted throughout the movement. Citizen-created media has been critical in sharing police brutality and the Occupy movement’s agenda with the public since its start on September 17, 2011. In fact, the mainstream media has progressively relied on videos and photographs produced by citizens and livestreamers at Occupy protests, illustrating its powerful [...]
Continue reading Video Advocacy Example: Civic Media How To’s
By Guest Blogger | January 18th, 2012 By Ivan Sigal. Ivan is the Executive Director of Global Voices Online.
This post was originally published on Global Voices Online as “U.S. Bills Could Threaten Global Internet,” January 17, 2012 and is available in English and six other languages.
At Global Voices, we understand that we, collectively, are the Internet. Our individual participation is what makes the Internet a global conversation of startling depth and variety, but this is possible only because of its open technical and legal structure. Unfortunately, there are powerful corporate and government forces who would prefer to see the openness and accessibility of the web restricted. They seek to deploy censorship and surveillance in the name of enforcing copyright, employing the very tools used to censor the Internet in authoritarian countries, such as China, Iran, and Syria.
Ignoring the warnings of citizens and technologists, United States lawmakers are considering two bills, the Stop Online Piracy [...]
Continue reading Why Global Organizations Are Joining the SOPA Blackout Strike
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