- Anatomy of a Bombing in Syria For many people outside Syria’s borders, shelling and bombings are concepts. They’re terrible and tragic, to be sure, but they remain hard to fathom as long as they remain unseen. That's why the Anatomy of a Bombing, our most recent playlist on the Human Rights Channel, is particularly arresting.
- In Depth on the Human Rights Channel: The Lonmin Mine Massacre In recent months, we’ve maintained video feeds for citizen journalism from Syria and worldwide. We’ve published in-depth playlists on topics ranging from the recent anti-American protests, to the persecution of the Rohingya minority in Burma, to the Mexican #YoSoy132 electoral protest movement.
- Whose Media Is It?: How Police Requests for Unreleased Footage Blur the Line Between News and Evidence A near 6-month battle between British news broadcasters and the police has recently concluded: last December’s court decision that ordered television companies including BBC, ITN, and Sky News to surrender to police hours of unaired footage from the violent October 19th Dale Farm eviction, was thrown out. Journalists are now hailing the decision as a landmark victory in the fight for news neutrality and confidentiality.
- Reckoning With Torture: A Call for Citizen Video Participation 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:
- At Great Risk, Syrians Document Testimonies and Human Rights Abuse with Video Since international media have been barred from entering Syria since mid 2011, news reports have relied heavily on activists in country who daily risk their own safety to film and share video and speak with reporters.
- Occupy Wall Street Livestream Curator Shares Experience and Tips At a desk densely populated by monitors in downtown Manhattan, I met Josh: Occupier, trendsetter, livestream aficionado. Josh was laid off on September 16th, the day before Occupiers arrived at Zuccotti Park.
- Activists’ Videos Capture Violence Erupting on Streets of Egypt The streets of Cairo reverberate to the sound of tens of thousands of voices chanting in unison “the people demand the toppling of the Field Marshal!” Demonstrators reoccupy Tahrir Square and organize a peaceful protest to express their dissatisfaction towards the Egyptian military.
- Occupy Wall Street: A Day of Global (Video) Action, Nov. 17, 2011 If you are like many WITNESS staff, you are tuned into the events of today's global actions in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite the recent events in New York City, Oakland, CA, and other cities where "permanent" encampments were cleared away, protesters around the U.S. and the world are back in city centers protesting today.
- Cameras, Livestreaming and Activism at Occupy Wall Street Walking through the city of tents at Liberty Plaza, home of Occupy Wall Street, it is immediately striking how many cameras there are floating about. Pointing this out, filmmaker and member of the media working group, who goes by the name of Fix, jokes with me that it sometimes feels like Liberty Plaza is an “occupied surveillance machine.”
- Did Citizen Media Help Get Us the Story That Counts in the London Riots? Almost as soon as riots exploded in the streets of London two weeks ago - indirectly sparked by protests over the shooting of 29 year old Mark Duggan – hundreds of videos and photos capturing the violence became available online. For days every major news outlet in the UK gave center stage to citizen-shot content, inviting people to send in their photos and videos to be published online.
- In the News: Authenticating Video Footage as Evidence in Sri Lanka Over the past two years, mobile phone footage of alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka has been at the center of a conversation regarding the evidentiary value of amateur video.
- Ahmad Bayasi’s Story: Citizen Video Authentication in Syria and Beyond When a video was posted online in April showing Syrian protesters being brutally beaten by security forces in the town of Bayda, the Syrian authorities quickly responded on state TV. First they said the footage was fake; they then alleged that the video had been filmed not in Syria but in northern Iraq, and depicted the abuse of prisoners by American marines.
- Watch: Cameras Everywhere – Presentation at Re:Publica 2011 A couple of weeks ago I presented at Re:Publica, the largest social media conference in Germany. Since the conference gives a generous 50 minutes to its speakers I had the opportunity not only to talk about WITNESS and our work in general (first 10 minutes or so), but also to explain in some depth the video advocacy challenges and opportunities surfaced by events in the Middle East and North Africa as well as some of the emerging questions in our Cameras Everywhere initiative. Namely, how do human rights values and practicalities intersect in the new ubiquitous video moment?
- The #Video4Change Community Honors Mohammed Nabbous As many of you are aware, Mohammed Nabbous, or Mo, as he was known to many of those following his video stream and commentary on social media about events in Libya, was killed by sniper fire in Benghazi on Saturday, March 19th. If you're not yet familiar with Mohammed's work, I encourage you to read these remembrances of him on Global Voices Online and The Washington Post's BlogPost.
- The Secure Smart Camera App for Human Rights Video Earlier this year we announced our “Cameras Everywhere” initiative which hopes to address some of the changes happening around human rights video online and on mobile phones. The tools for creating and distributing video are becoming more wide spread and more accessible.
