• Strengthening Collective Capacity to Respond to the War on Gaza Read WITNESS’ Statement. This post is also available in Arabic. A communications blackout plunged millions of Gazans, including civilians, journalists, paramedic teams and aid agencies, in an information vacuum from October 27 to midday October 29 when connectivity was partially restored. Today, we stand in a moment fraught with the gravest of risks for further […] WITNESS November 3, 2023
  • Why Global Organizations Are Joining the SOPA Blackout Strike 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. WITNESS January 18, 2012
  • Re-Stalinization and revisionism in Russia Last week Russian historian Mikhail Suprun was arrested by Russia's FSB security service for - as Truthdig put it - daring to study Russian history; more specifically, Stalin's gulags. Suprun's archives were confiscated; a police official who provided access to archive documents about gulag victims was also arrested. Suprun faces up to four years in jail if convicted. WITNESS October 20, 2009
  • Archives, power & memory “There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory.” – Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever. Clifford Levy’s November 26 NY Times article about renewed control and suppression of the archives in the Putin era chillingly illustrates Derrida’s thesis: “TOMSK, Russia: For years, the earth in this Siberian city had been giving […] WITNESS December 2, 2008
  • Does The Number have a lesson for human rights activists? Our good friend Ethan has done it again, drawing the connection between a recent viral meme, anti-censorship, and human rights in an article on World Changing. A 16 digit number used as a key to decrypt HD-DVDs became the center of an online revolt against internet censorship yesterday, when it was posted on several blogs, […] WITNESS May 3, 2007