New Tacticsis organizing podcast conversations on the potential of podcasting in human rights activism and the power of narrative storytelling. Hosted by Gianna Brassil. Podcasts are downloadable episodes of audio content, typically part of a series on a thematic topic. Over the past few years, podcasts have grown into a dynamic media form, with niche shows catering to listeners’ political, cultural, educational, musical, and technological audio palate. While podcasts are often produced by professional radio stations, they can also be created independent media creators. The freelance nature of podcasts makes them a unique tool for activists who want to broaden the audience of their message through a low-cost means.
New Tactics created its own podcast that explores issues of representation, the value of oral storytelling, and accessibility in creating independent media. The tension between a podcast’s entertainment value and the representation of human suffering is a topic that we grapple with in our podcast. We ask questions about how we can create stories that are honest and empathetic, meanwhile knowing that sometimes it is impossible to “create comprehensible stories out of the incomprehensible” (That the World May Know, James Dawes). Our podcast guests also discuss the uniqueness of voices and oral storytelling as tools to re-humanize conflicts and highlight the experiences of individual human lives. Finally, we discuss the accessibility of podcasts. With a microphone, simple audio editing software like Adobe Audition or Garageband, and an online platform such as Soundcloud to distribute episodes, activists can reach countless potential listeners. The power of becoming a media creator cannot be underestimated, and this episode seeks to demonstrate how media creators have the ability to reshape the landscape of representation, define for themselves what it means to be a human rights activist, and nuance an audience’s conception of how human rights stories can be told.
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum (26 May) Australian-Afghan media entrepreneur Saad Mohseni describes how in 2006 he returned to the country of his birth, where he and his brother started by setting up set up a radio station and then a television station in postwar Afghanistan. In a fascinating performance he argues that even after decades of unrest, the country can improve its human rights situation and build a more stable future. According to Mohseni, change has not come about through government or international action alone. Instead, media has played a transformative role in rebuilding Afghanistan. Mohseni tells us about the successes of soap operas in strengthening women’s rights, as well as televised football’s role in bringing citizens together and providing role models. Mohseni believes that Afghanistan has changed significantly due to radio, internet, and television, and that media will continue to play an important role in the future.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), expresses its great concern about the smear campaign and threats suffered by Ms. Nimalka Fernando, attorney-at-law, women’s rights activist and President of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) in Sri Lanka. [Ms. Fernando was also a convener of the alternative summit to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which is taking place in Sri Lanka from November 10 to 17, 2013 amid strong criticism of the country’s human rights abuses.] Read the rest of this entry »
A post of 24 October in LGBT Weekly informs about a cooperation between Front Line Defenders and the LGBTI Support Centre of the of the Helsinki Committee for human rights of the Republic of Macedonia and the ACI-Particpa in Honduras in a new campaign RADIOHRD. LGBTI rights defenders attempt to increase their recognition and capacity to carry out their work by sharing a clear message on Public Service Announcements [PSAs] in each country in order to change societal attitudes and institutional frameworks that lead to violence and discrimination. This new campaign utilizes radio as one of the most powerful tools for awareness raising and reform. “In a time where technologies of information play an increasingly important role in the processes of social change, we find that the radio is still the most reliable, trusted and widely used media amongst all sectors of society all around the world, and Honduras and Macedonia are no exception to this”, explains Kocho Andonovski, program director of the LGBTI Support Centre in Macedonia. Through this awareness raising campaign, eight human rights defenders give their testimony to illustrate the reality faced by the LGBTI communities and those working to promote their rights and end violence and discrimination. During the coming months, national and local radio stations in Macedonia and Honduras will broadcast the series of Public Service Announcements PSAs, short radio spots aimed to promote the recognition that LGBTI rights defenders are engaged in legitimate and valuable work to promote human rights. The campaign will also be broadcasted via the website http://www.radiohrd.org, where video interviews, petitions in support of the defenders and further information are also available.
Gmedia concluded its 4th workshop in its Media Empowerment on Human Rights programme held in Geneva from 13 to 17 May 2013 in collaboration with OMCT and with the participation of thirteen journalists, four from Guatemala and nine from Kenya. As part of the programme, Gmedia makes its workshops run in parallel with the UN Committee on Torture (CAT) sessions. Journalists participated in debates and discussions conducted by Human Rights experts from the academia, Media, UN Agencies, Permanent Missions and International NGOs on such topics as the Human Rights doctrine, monitoring mechanisms and institutions, sharing experiences and good practices, and challenging the role of media as a human rights defender. Journalists had also the opportunity to attend and report on the Committee against torture session concerning their respective countries.
As a result, the course can point to 37 published articles, video broadcasted and radio programs by participants in Guatemala and Kenya and 3 live coverage on CAT broadcasted in Kenyan television. Gmedia is currently working on the development of its next workshop to follow the sessions of the UPR in October 2013.
On 3 June 2013, an email was sent to Colonel Julián González, Chief of Police for Sucre, Colombia, informing him of a plan to kill human rights defender Juan David Díaz Chamorro, his wife Malena Martínez, and one other person closely linked to the family. Several other human rights defenders were copied in the email. Juan David Díaz Chamorro is the leader of the Sucre branch of the Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado – MOVICE (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes) and the son of Eudaldo Díaz, assassinated Mayor of El Roble, Sucre. Read the rest of this entry »
On 12 April 2013 Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam posted on Amnesty‘s Livewire an interesting account of his meeting with the just liberated Cambodian Human Rights Defender Mam Sonando. It is a impressive testimony to the resilience of human rights defenders and how campaigning can help them and therefore I reproduce it below:
It was hot – very hot – as I arrived last week at Mam Sonando’s home and radio station on a dusty street in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. He welcomed me at the front door. “Thank you,” he said. With a broad smile, he flashed his signature ‘V for victory’ sign with his right hand. After over eight months in prison, he was free and no longer facing 20 years behind bars.
Mam Sonando, 72, is a well-known and popular journalist. He owns Beehive Radio, one of Cambodia’s few independent radio stations. And he heads the Association of Democrats, which promotes human rights and democracy and helps poor communities. On 11 September 2012, his trial began at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. He had been arrested two months earlier after Cambodia’s Prime Minister accused him publicly of being behind a plot for a village in eastern Cambodia to secede – to break away from the country. In fact, the villagers there had been involved in a long-running land conflict with a powerful company, and the so-called secession plot was used as a pretext to forcibly evict them. Read the rest of this entry »
Front Line report s that on 4 March 2013, human rights defender and prominent radio and television journalist Mr Julio Ernesto Alvarado announced his resignation from presenting the week night news commentary programme Medianoche on national radio station Radio Globo, due to serious fears for his life. Julio Ernesto Alvarado, who is also Director of Mi Nación, an hourly news programme transmitted nightly by television station Globo TV, has been subjected to continuous threats and surveillance since he began presenting the radio programme in 2011, the most recent incidents of which occurred on 1 and 2 March 2013.
On 1 March 2013, a vehicle prevented him from entering the tunnel which gives access to the car park of the premises of Radio Globo and Globo TV. The journalist was subsequently forced to park elsewhere. Upon entering the building, Julio Ernesto Alvarado was informed by security guards that an unknown man had entered the premises of Radio Globo. When the journalist went to investigate, he was unable to locate the individual. It is believed that the man had entered the building in order to inspect Julio Ernesto Alvarado’s work environment and system of security.
(800 people gathered in front of the Phnom Penh Court of Appeal to support Mam Sonando (c) Clothilde Le Coz)
Arrested on July 15th 2012, Beehive Radio journalist and director, Mam Sonando, was sentenced in the first instance to twenty years in prison in October 2012. He was charged with instigating villagers and peasants to protest against lands expropriation, in Kratie province. He was convicted and sentenced for “aggravating circumstances rebellion, unlawful interference in the performance of public functions, insurrection, inciting people to take arms against the state authority”. After spending already eight months in prison, his appeal started on 5 March 2013.
Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, presented her report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. She said inter alia that the response of law enforcement authorities in Tunisia to violations against human rights defenders appears ‘unsatisfactory’ and that the lack of independence of the judiciary is also a cause for concern. “I am concerned about the considerable polarization I observed in Tunisian society between secularists and Islamists, including so-called Salafists, a divide which also transpires to civil society. All stakeholders, including the international community, should work together to ensure dialogue, understanding and respect between different parts of society.”
Ms Sekaggya also told the Human Rights Council that she’s particularly concerned about the way human rights defenders are treated in countries in the Gulf region, especially in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And on recent developments in Egypt she said that the considerable violence suffered by peaceful protesters, including gender-based violence against women human rights defenders, points to a situation that is getting out of hand.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 