Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that for decades has documented war crimes and atrocities, will be awarded the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, the University of Connecticut announced on 2 February 2017. “Physicians for Human Rights exemplifies the kind of work the Dodd Prize was created to honor,” former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, the son of the Nuremberg prosecutor and senator for whom the awarded is named, said in a statement.”My father would recognize in PHR the same spirit that animated the Nuremberg Tribunals, but also would be amazed at PHR’s innovation and courage in seeking justice and accountability for the perpetrators of atrocities,”
Using forensic science, medicine and public health research, Physicians for Human Rights documents crimes against humanity in places across the world, including past issues in Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UConn said in announcing the award. The group also trains professionals worldwide to do the similar investigations and prevention, the announcement said. PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for work on the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
PHR will be presented the award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, in November this year.
The Permanent Mission of the Netherlands in Geneva, THE Port Association (https://twitter.com/theportatcern) and Impact Hub Geneva will host their hackathon in the field of human rights, on the 26/27 February 2016. The Human Rights DiploHack event will bring together diplomats and human rights experts with tech developers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all over Europe and beyond, to experiment and innovate on projects that directly impact people’s lives. From the multidisciplinary expertise of the participants, teams will be formed to work on two challenges presented by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“How can Human Right Defenders collect and transport evidence in a safe way?”, and
“Does a photo or video tell the ‘truth?”.
[as a first contribution I refer to the video as evidence instructions posted by Witness on 18 February 2016
The result will be presented at the Palais des Nations, on 29 February during a side event open to the public on the occasion of the Human Rights Council (for accreditation to this side event, non-UN-badge holders are invited to contact the organizers before 24 February). True Heroes Films (THF) will be filming the event and will produce a short film to be shown at the side event.
Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, the Executive Director of WITNESS, posted an important piece in the Huffington Post of 2 September on how to make sure that the increase in human rights videos uploaded to Witness (and the same for other NGOs) make a real difference. After citing several examples of such footage of violence, conflict, and human rights abuses, she reflects as follows: “When I watch these videos with such potential to transform human rights advocacy, I am concerned about the gaps and the lost opportunities: the videos that cannot be authenticated; the stories that will be denied or thrown out of court — or worse, will never reach their intended audience; a survivor’s account lost in a visual sea of citizen media. Mostly, I worry about the safety of the person who filmed, about her privacy and security.”
…….
“When WITNESS was created, we talked about the power of video to “open the eyes of the world to human rights violations.” Today, our collective eyes have been opened to many of the conflicts and abuses that are going on around us. This creates, for all of us, a responsibility to engage. I am deeply convinced that citizen documentation has the power to transform human rights advocacy, change behaviors, and increase accountability. But let’s make sure that all of us filming have the right tools and capabilities, and that we apply and share the lessons we are learning from citizen witnesses around the world, so that more people filming truly equals more rights.”
(Photo credit: WITNESS, used under Creative Commons)
Kelly Matheson of WITNESS and the New Tactics community organise an online conversation on the Using Video for Documentation and Evidence from 21 to 25 July, 2014. User-generated content can be instrumental in drawing attention to human rights abuses. But many filmers and activists want their videos to do more. They have the underlying expectation that footage exposing abuse can help bring about justice. Unfortunately, the quality of citizen video and other content rarely passes the higher bar needed to function as evidence in a court of law. This online discussion is an opportunity for practitioners of law, technology and human rights to share their experiences, challenges, tools and ideas to help increase the chances that the footage citizens and activists often risk their lives to capture can do more than expose injustice – it can also serve as evidence in the criminal and civil justice processes.
This blog has often referred to the growing role of images in the protection of human rights. The Activists Guide to Archiving Video produced by the NGO Witness is one tool that can greatly help those who want to be part of this development. The term “archive” may turn off many human rights defenders as something boring or at least not deserving priority but to neglect it would be a big error. As the Witness guide explains very clearly:
Do you want your videos to be available in the future?
Do you want your videos to serve as evidence of crimes or human rights abuses?
Do you want your videos to raise awareness and educate future generations?
The risks of not archiving are big:
Your videos may exist somewhere, but no one can find them.
Someone may find your videos, but cannot understand what they are about.
Your videos cannot be sufficiently authenticated or corroborated as evidence.
Your videos’ quality may become so degraded that no one can use them.
Your videos may be in a format that eventually no one can play.
Your videos may be accidentally or deliberately deleted and lost forever.
In further sections the Guide help to understand how videos can be made accessible (shared) and brings clarity to tricky issues such as the different formats and copyright.
Twelve months ago, Witness and its partners at Storyful launched the first dedicated space on YouTube for verified citizen video on human rights issues. Read the rest of this entry »
