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After Hurricane Sandy, Our Youth Call on Us: Be Upstanders, Not Bystanders. Vote for Climate Justice!
Over the last year, we filmed youth from across the country – literally from Boston, Massachusetts to a village just inland from the Bering Sea – whose lives have already been changed by the deterioration of our Earth’s atmosphere. These award-winning video portraits showcase how our youth are bravely taking legal action against our governments’ collective failure to take serious climate action.
November 1, 2012
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TRUST Oregon: Kelsey Juliana Asks Courts to Recognize her Generation’s Right to a Healthy Atmosphere
Since the world’s key decision makers and our legislature’s refuse to lead us out of our climate crisis and protect our air and water, our youth, between classes, after school and on weekends, are stepping up and asking the courts to recognize and honor their constitutional right to a healthy atmosphere. In Oregon, Kelsey Juliana’s parents taught her not to take the air and water for granted.
October 10, 2012
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The Venerable Luon Sovath Wins Prestigious Martin Ennals Award
I am incredibly honored to announce that the Venerable Luon Sovath from Cambodia has just been presented the Martin Ennals Award - an award given by 10 major human rights organizations to recognize those working at great risk for human rights.
October 2, 2012
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People Before Profit: New Video on Global Forced Evictions
New video People Before Profit – bringing communities across the world together to tell the global story of forced evictions. WITNESS has supported forced evictions campaigns for more than 10 years. During this time, these projects have amplified the voices of communities across the world. For World Habitat Day we are bringing many of these voices together for the first time to tell another story.
September 27, 2012
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The ICC Renders Its First Sentence: Is Justice Served for Congolese Child Soldiers?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has rendered it’s first ever sentence in the case of Mr. Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese warlord and leader of UPC (Union Patriotique Congolais). Lubanga was convicted, as co-perpetrator, on three counts of war crimes including enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the Ituri region, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between September 2002 and June 2003.
September 25, 2012
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Personal Reflection on Human Rights Values and the Anti-Muslim Video
I'd like to share my views on the recent events as a human rights advocate who has used/is using video for human rights change - particularly recently in North Africa and the Middle East; as an African; and as a Christian.
September 19, 2012
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Tips for Activists Using the YouTube Face Blur Tool
Recently, YouTube launched a feature that allows blurring on videos uploaded to their site. It's a step we've pushed for from the commercial video-sharing platforms and social networks - as a way to enable easy, faster, more accessible options for preserving and enabling visual anonymity in a networked, visual age.
August 7, 2012
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TRUST Pennsylvania: America’s Youth Have Solutions to Climate Change, Let’s Follow Their Lead
Over the course of the last year, I have been working with a dynamic, committed and brilliant group of young Americans who don't have trouble imagining a future different from the present. They don’t block out complex problems that lack simple solutions and instead find the solutions.
July 25, 2012
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TRUST: Connecting Catastrophe with Climate Change
My biggest hope is that the media - and then the public - will begin connecting our weather catastrophes with climate change so we will not only hear what the climate is trying to tell us, but will also listen.
June 29, 2012
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Ideas, Buzz Words and Connections at the Social Innovation Summit 2012
What do the President of JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Lady Gaga’s mother, a young woman computer programming whiz, the former Hollywood director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the Chairman of World Economic Forum and a former NFL player have in common? They all spoke, along with many more, at the Social Innovation Summit of 2012, held at the United Nations last week.
June 6, 2012
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Cambodian Monk and Advocate for Human Rights is Detained, May Be Defrocked
We have received word that the Venerable has been released and was not defrocked. More information soon. The fastest way to get updates on this developing situation is to follow me on Twitter: @WitnessRyan
May 24, 2012
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Tactical and Technological Defences For Facial Recognition Technology
In my last post I looked at how facial recognition technology (FRT) works, how it's now in our phones, social networks and media management, and how legislators and regulators are reacting to this. But it's also increasingly used by law enforcement and for surveillance of "public" spaces.
May 18, 2012
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Join WITNESS For An Online Dialogue On Archiving Human Rights
I'm excited to announce that starting today (May 16) through May 22 my fellow archivist Yvonne Ng and I will be co-hosting an online dialogue hosted by New Tactics in Human Rights titled Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory.
May 16, 2012
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TRUST Colorado: Understanding What It Means to Protect Our Atmosphere
Justinian concluded that these essential, common, natural resources belong to everyone and not just the Emperor or the privileged. Consequently, the Roman Empire protected these resources in trust, for the public. This hallowed legal principle, referred to as the Public Trust Doctrine, is perhaps most simply explained by 11-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez...
May 8, 2012
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How To Film Protests: Video Tip Series for Activists at Occupy Wall Street, in Syria and Beyond
The thousands of human rights-related videos being created and shared - from raw documentation of human rights violations in Syria to the Occupy protests and the range of police abuse and misconduct therein - illuminate the role that citizen video is playing to not only inform us but also to motivate us to take action.
April 30, 2012
