- Coronavirus and human rights: Preparing WITNESS’s response UPDATE: Our COVID-19 landing page is here (and Portuguese, Spanish) COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is creating rapid and dangerous human rights implications globally, directly impacting people’s lives, livelihoods, security, health, ability to work and freedom of movement and assembly, as well as leading to implications for digital rights and increasing online surveillance. The immediate implications of coronavirus – […]
- The Hunt for Digital Evidence of the Rohingya Genocide In documenting historical records of destruction or grievous danger to a peoples over time, digital trails are a human rights crusader’s best–sometimes most accurate–source of evidence. And yet at the same time, such data can fall into the wrong hands, putting the lives of the persecuted, and those fighting for their rights, at grave risk. […]
- Video Evidence and the Case for the Rohingya How eyewitness video and digital evidence verification work together to corroborate violence and destruction in Burma.
- Last Month in Video: August When WITNESS was founded in 1992, we wanted to get cameras in people’s hands. This wasn’t an easy task- at the time, cameras weren’t in every household, they weren’t cheap, and it wasn’t instinctive for people to reach for their camera. Now, video is everywhere, and it’s being made by everyone with a cell phone. […]
- This Week on The Human Rights Channel – Myanmar, Peru and Ukraine In Myanmar, the attack on a Red Cross convoy transporting civilians away from fighting is captured on camera. In Ukraine the massive amount of video taken by protesters and reporters during the Euromaidan protests of late 2013 to early last year provides evidence of crimes against humanity. And in Peru, an oil company halts some of its operations after the death of a student protester, as indigenous groups continue to demand compensation for use of their land.
- Mapping Our Materials: The Forced Evictions Advocacy Toolkit Goes Global Highlights from Brazil, Burma, Colombia, Egypt, Philippines and Scotland on how the Forced Evictions Advocacy Toolkit is being used by activists, artists and communities. Part one of a two-part series.
- The Human Rights Video Weekly: Reports from Sudan, Syria and China This week we highlight citizen video documenting bombings in civilian areas in Sudan, accounts of torture in Syria's prisons, and a deadly factory fire in China that killed 16 people.
- On World Refugee Day, Displaced People Share Their Own Stories Over 40 million people are displaced worldwide due to conflict, persecution and natural or man-made disasters, but refugees are making their voices heard.
- Citizen Video for Journalists…and Everyone Else 90 countries. 1,892 videos. 137 in-depth human rights playlists. 1 year of the Human Rights Channel on YouTube.
- The Ceasefire that Never Happened The Burma government denied airstrikes against civilians in a regional capital—until citizen video helped force their confession. This is how it happened.
- Unleashing the Potential of Citizen Witnesses With more witnesses from more regions equipped to document their communities, how can we in the human rights, media, and technology fields help realize the potential of citizen reporters?
- From Syria to Burma: 2012 in Citizen Human Rights Video Only six words accompany the video. But they are just enough background needed for the one minute and seven seconds it depicts: “ROHINGYA MUSLIM VILLAGE IN ANDI VILLAGE 2.”
- President Obama Travels To Burma and Southeast Asia Amid Rising Tensions President Obama leaves tomorrow to make a historic visit to Southeast Asia, specifically to Burma (also known as Myanmar), where he will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country. However, escalating violence in western Burma, where ethnic minorities have been attacked, displaced, and persecuted by civilians and state forces, undermines recent democratic progress in the country.
- A Small Step for Democracy in Burma but More Attention Needed For Ethnic Minorities Burma held parliamentary by-elections for a portion of the entire parliament body yesterday. By most accounts, the polling went relatively smoothly with some incidents of irregularities being reported.
- 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?
