It’s been an exciting week here at WITNESS. We released our “Cameras Everywhere” report and many of us have been sharing it and we’re looking forward to discussion to come. The report surveys the current landscape of human rights, video and technology and makes recommendations to a variety of players in that landscape from technology companies to policy makers and civil society organizations.  If you missed it, you can read about the report here and access the whole report on our website.

And now a short Digest:

  • Last week a video surfaced on YouTube of the attorney general of Syria’s Hama province, Mr. Adnan Mohammad al-Bakkour, who publicly tendered his resignation due to alleged human rights abuses by the Syrian government which he goes on to list- including extrajudicial killings and cover ups. The Syrian government responded by releasing a video of their own. The claimed that the official had been kidnapped by and forced to record the video, calling into question the authenticity of the video.
  • A mobile video of an alleged rape of a Haitian teenager by Uruguayan peacekeepers with the UN’s mission in Haiti surfaced last week. The video became public after two Haitian men were exchanging music files with an Uruguayan soldier via Bluetooth. I am not linking to the video here out of respect to the victim, but rather to an article in the UK newspaper The Independent.
  • Finally, as this weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we’re asking you to share examples of videos and other multimedia work that discuss and call for tolerance and respect for one another. Here is a mainstream TV news story from the US network CBS to start us off:

Please share links and examples here in the comments section or via Twitter using the hashtag #video4change.

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