- 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 – […]
- Human rights defenders are not terrorists, and their content is not propaganda Counter-terrorism is not a field that is known for its respect of human rights. The word terrorism, though it does not have any commonly agreed upon legal or societal definition, has often led to the implementation of repressive measures, not only in authoritarian regimes, but also in countries recognized as democracies. The United Nations Office […]
- Hope for Justice: 7 years of the Syrian Uprising WITNESS catches up and reflects with our partners working with activists, lawyers, and investigators to secure justice in Syria, 7 years after the uprising began.
- You Are Power: The Women and Organizations Who Inspire Us In honor and in celebration of International Women's Day 2018, WITNESS' regional teams highlight the women and organizations who inspire us.
- Video As Evidence in the Middle East & North Africa WITNESS and PILnet answer questions on the past and future of video as evidence, and how their collaboration on the Video As Evidence in the Middle East & North Africa report came about.
- Last Month In Video: 2017, a year of extremes Video had a big role to play in 2017. From YouTube takedowns to fake news, police bodycams to a historic ICC arrest warrant, here's our last year in video review.
- Video as Evidence and the Arab Spring: Seven Years On In 2011, video helped spark a movement across the Middle East and North Africa after the first shaky videos were uploaded to the internet by citizen journalists and activists. Today the importance of documentation remains constant—but faces new challenges. WITNESS reflects on the Arab Spring, 7 years on and looking forward.
- 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. […]
- Vital Human Rights Evidence in Syria is Disappearing from YouTube Thousands of videos showing human rights abuses in Syria, as well as the channels that feature these videos, are being removed by YouTube.
- Set your phone to ProofMode Why Proof? You see a wide pink sky and bushes in a relatively nondescript landscape. You hear an explosion in the background. The camera shakes as a man repeats, strangely calm, “Allahu akhbar.” A few seconds later, an explosion rocks the ground in front of the person filming, and the camera falls, sideways, to the […]
- Seeing Aylan Kurdi, Adam Ward and Alison Parker Program Director Sam Gregory reflects on discussions around the treatment of images of horror, such as recent images of deceased refugee children on a Turkish beach and the on-camera shooting spree in Virginia, in the fight for human rights.
- This Week on the Human Rights Channel – ICYMI Edition From the results of Kashmir’s election to an interview with Aleppo’s Free Syrian Army fighters, and calls for peace and security in Pakistan following the deadly school attack last month, this posts features some of the citizen reports that came out at the end of 2014.
- The 2014 Human Rights Citizen Video – Year in Review Police brutality, forced evictions, political protests and migrant abuse. A look back at 2014's human rights struggles through citizen footage. What videos did we watch, and what impact did they have?
- Top 7 Takeaways from WITNESS’ Guide to Filming Sexual Violence Survivors The Syria Justice and Accountability Center shares key guidance from a WITNESS guide designed to help effectively document sexual and gender based violence in Syria.
- Will the Syrian Hero Boy Make Us Question Everything We See? (and why don’t we do that already?) A video described as showing Syrian kids attacked by snipers was revealed to be the work of filmmakers and actors in Malta. It’s only the latest example of online video shared with misleading context.
