The article, “A Step by Step Guide to Filming an Injustice as a Bystander,” is part of the cover story feature “What Would You Stand Up For?” and highlights our guidance and resources on safe and ethical filming and provides insight on how to use the technology at our fingertips for human rights change and justice.

“Recording human rights abuses on video has the power to counter misleading narratives, spark investigations, and mobilize people. Video can even be used as evidence in court to secure justice for victims,” our U.S. Program Manager, Jackie Zammuto told the magazine.

The article dives into all the things one should account for before filming and sharing. To read the full article, click here.

WITNESS’ Brazil Program Manager Victor Ribeiro joined a panel at the National Archives to discuss the importance of archiving and community strategies regarding Brazil’s favelas where black youth are especially targeted, surveilled and murdered by police. Our Brazil team continues to train, organize, and help preserve critical footage of police violence and community-led narratives by bolstering the work of partners like Coletivo Papo Reto. 

Thanks to the efforts of all translators and volunteers reviewers in Brazil, with special shout-outs to Maria Byington and Marco Dreer, whose translations and revisions have resulted in the final guide which has been circulating around the country in events and discussions on the use of video in the fight for social justice.

Read the original post in Portuguese. 

In 2017 especially—from the villainization of the Rohingya fueling a genocide, to the epidemic of violence and video used as entertainment against the transgender community—activists are fighting false narratives on the daily. And when there is footage supporting this fight that authorities want to destroy, archiving is crucial.

Screenshot from WITNESS Media Lab case study on police violence and accountability.

This is epitomized in the case of Kianga Mwamba, who retrieved her eyewitness video documenting police abuse from the cloud after officers had deleted it from her phone. Knowing how and when to store footage and then retrieve it can alter the course of a case of abuse, from getting the truth out against an official narrative to the difference between an innocent or guilty judicial verdict. 

So join us in celebrating this month and bolstering the work of courageous activists by learning to protect human rights footage. Our Activists’ Guide to Archiving is available online and for download in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese. From creation, to organization and storage, the guide takes readers through step-by-step processes used in archiving workflows. 

As always, we welcome feedback, remixing, and sharing of our resources. Together, we can make sure that powerful stories and evidence are not erased, forgotten, or denied.

Whether it be hateful slurs directed at Muslim immigrants, acts of discrimination that target indigenous peoples, or violence against minority populations in South and Southeast Asia, hatred towards vulnerable communities is increasingly gaining momentum. Viral videos shared on social media in recent times have particularly played an important role in exposing violations against humanity that stoke the flames of hatred and prejudice.

To ensure that video footage of acts of hatred is verifiable and has evidentiary value in a court of law, there are certain tips and techniques that will augment the efforts of activists, journalists, filmmakers and citizens on the ground. It’s important to understand how you can help as a witness to hate-fuelled crime.

Translations in Burmese, Tamil and Sinhala will be available soon.
To learn more, follow our Asia-Pacific team on Twitter and Facebook.

WITNESS is doubling down on our work in the U.S. We are continuing our support of people documenting police violence, and we are expanding to support at-risk groups such as immigrants, refugees and LGBT communities to use video as a tool to expose abuses and amplify personal narratives.

Right now, we know that people are witnessing and reporting acts of hate. Below we share tips to documenting these acts more safely and effectively. Filming hate can expose abuse, substantiate reports, deter violence and serve as evidence.

We also encourage you to check out these resources from the SPLC: Ten Ways to Fight Hate – A Community Response Guide and the ACLU: Feel like you’re at risk?

FILMING HATE

If you witness a hateful act, let the victim know you are there to help. If you feel that filming could make the situation worse, don’t do it.

Take Action Now:

• Enable auto backup on your phone
• Free up space on your device
• Protect your device with a passcode

BE SAFE!

Download the tip sheet here!

Your camera can protect you or put you and others at risk. Could exposing the identity of a victim, such as an immigrant or trans person, endanger them or others in their community? Ask yourself: Does anyone’s identity need to be protected? Who can I call for help? Do I have an escape route? Could someone take my camera? Are there others around? Can I film without being seen?

FILM SO OTHERS UNDERSTAND

Show what happened with details like injuries, torn clothing, blood stains, hateful chants, slurs, threats, license plates, threatening symbols, graffiti, spray paint cans, property damage and weapons. Talking to someone on camera can help capture important parts of the story, or cause harm by making them a target or revictimizing them.

PROVE IT’S REAL

Film (or say) the time and date. Show street signs, landmarks, others filming and nearby surveillance cameras to help prove your location. Film without stopping if you can. If sharing online, include a clear, factual description.

DON’T SHAKE

Keep your camera steady and hold important shots for at least 10 seconds. Film multiple angles from different distances. Getting good video in low light can be hard, but the audio can still be valuable.

THINK BEFORE YOU SHARE

Uploading your video or livestreaming on a public channel can turn you – or the victim and their community – into a target. Once it’s online, you lose control of who sees the video and the context it’s shared in. Before sharing publicly, ask for advice from a lawyer, the victim, a trusted friend, local activist or journalist.

BACK IT UP

Save the original file in a safe place. Don’t delete the original file or change the filename. Ever. If you do edit, do it from a copy.

WHO TO TELL

Many non-profit and state organizations are recording reports of hate-related incidents. Look for a group near you to file a report and find additional support for the victim.

Download these tips here and learn more about filming safely and effectively at library.witness.org. Also available in Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish.

From online videos of rights violations to satellite images of environmental degradation, to eyewitness accounts disseminated on social media, we have access to more relevant data today than ever before. When used responsibly, this data can help human rights professionals in the courtroom, when working with governments and journalists, and in documenting historical record.

But integrating data collection and management into the day to day work of human rights work and documentation can be challenging, even overwhelming, for individuals and organisations.

The resource is the result of a collaborative project led by Amnesty International, Benetech, and The Engine Room, which WITNESS was invited to participate in.

The contributions from WITNESS are informed by our work with partners and allies around the world and seek to address specific issues they confront on a regular basis – such as video verification and ethical use of eyewitness media, video takedowns on online platforms, and developing well-organized catalogues of human rights footage, such as police abuse or war crimes. 

For specific guidance on these issues, check out the sections:

• “Verify, Verify, Verify” (p.24)
• “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Preserving Online Videos and Photos” (p. 48)
• “Organising Your Photo and Video Catalogue” (p. 51)
• Download the full guide here

Contact

To find out more about the project, or give feedback, please email: hrdocs@theengineroom.org

Since late 2015, WITNESS and FiSahara have together leveraged online videos to support more effective reporting on Western Sahara – a territory that is nearly invisible to the outside world. The two organizations have trained at-risk Sahrawi media activists and human rights defenders on safe and effective documentation, and utilized the curation platform Checkdesk to curate, verify, and contextualize online reports.

Watching Western Sahara Silk compiles nearly 100 online videos recorded between December 2015 and June 2016, and allows users to view them within the context of larger stories of human rights in Western Sahara. In addition to other issues, these videos collectively expose a pattern of police intervention of peaceful protests, a large social movement calling for economic opportunities, ongoing demands for self-determination, and women-led demonstrations addressing the treatment of political prisoners. Click here to explore interactive reports and find videos based on location, time of recording, and other data points.   

The United Nations considers Western Sahara one of the world’s last “non-self-governing territories.” The Sahrawi population has lived under Moroccan rule for more than 40 years, despite a 1991 UN-brokered agreement to hold a referendum for self-determination. Due to strict limitations on the press, foreigners, and international human rights monitors, very rarely does footage or other reporting from the territory come to the attention of the international community.

More on this project and media activism in Western Sahara can be found here.

In our cameras everywhere world, the number of civilians using video to document abuses, war crimes, and more has grown exponentially. Citizen witnesses, not trained human rights investigators, are often first on the scene. However, while there is more video than ever, the quality of this footage rarely passes the bar needed to serve as evidence. WITNESS’ new guide is poised to change that. The Field Guide provides practical guidance, case studies, checklists and more to help activists and lawyers better collaborate, in turn, strengthening the likelihood that their videos can be used in court, for advocacy, and be trusted by the media.

The Field Guide draws on WITNESS’ nearly 25 years of supporting and training human rights advocates to use video to document abuse and as a tool for justice including at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court. One of the biggest drivers in creating the guide was our experience supporting Syrian activists.

“While no conflict has been as thoroughly documented as the Syrian war, the footage many activists risk their lives to capture has not had the desired effect of prompting action to stop human rights abuses. Furthermore, they seek long-term justice and accountability,” said Kelly Matheson, Senior Attorney and Program Manager at WITNESS, and author of the Field Guide. And if last week’s verdict against Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic (he was on the run for 13 years and his trial took five) is any indication, Syria’s road to justice may be long.

The Video as Evidence Field Guide was written with universal principles at its core and is adaptable to global contexts whether in Syria, Brazil, the Central African Republic, the United States or beyond. Translations of the Guide are already underway in Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian, with more planned.

The Video as Evidence Field Guide includes:

All About the Law: Basic legal principles and processes every activist should be familiar with;

• Basic Practices: How to safeguard, organize and manage your videos to ensure they can be accessed and used by investigators, attorneys and judges;
• Filming for Evidence:
  • Camera techniques for capturing video with enhanced evidentiary value;
  • Proving responsibility through linkage evidence
  • Filming Interviewing: Including an overview of informed consent
• Sharing and Verifying: Guidance on whether to post your video or not and if you decide to post, practices for posting human rights footage; ensuring a video you film or footage you find can be used as evidence;
• Case Studies From the Field: Stories illustrating how video has been used throughout the justice process and presented to courts;
• Mini Guides: Illustrated summaries for quick reference of many sections;
• And much more.

Download the guide for free here.

Watch a video teaser here and join the conversation online at #VideoAsEvidence.

Related Events:

29 March – DocuDays film festival in Kyiv, Ukraine – a training will be held for documentary filmmakers including an overview of the Field Guide.

Today – RightsCon in San Francisco – Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, WITNESS’ executive director discusses the Field Guide on a panel.

Today – Twitter chat with Women Under Siege, a project of the Women’s Media Center and Matisse Bustos-Hawkes of WITNESS from 2-3pm EDT. Join the conversation #VideoAsEvidence  @witnessorg @womenundrsiege and @matissebh.

2 April 2016 American Society of International Law annual meeting, Washington, D.C. – The Field Guide’s author Kelly Matheson speaks on panel about video as evidence.

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About WITNESS: WITNESS trains and supports activists and citizen witnesses around the world to use video safely, ethically, and effectively to expose abuse and fight for human rights change. Since our founding in 1992, WITNESS has trained and partnered with thousands of people using video for change around the world.

The website includes:

• The Video as Evidence Field Guide
• Case studies and field notes from the VAE Field Guide
• Current news and events surrounding Video as Evidence

Visit the Video as Evidence website. 

The Library provides free access – and downloads – to a growing collection of human rights video resources.

Inside the Library, you’ll find WITNESS training guides, videos, and our full Video for Change curriculum. Whether you’re an expert or a beginner in using human rights video, the Library includes resources for advocates, citizen documenters, journalists and trainers at all experience levels.

Here’s a bit of what it looks like (select images to enlarge):

The materials cover a range of issues – including filming forced evictions and interviewing survivors gender-based violence – and provide practical guidance on topics like video production, distribution and human rights documentation. We’d like to thank our allies and partners whose feedback and insights are instrumental in identifying the needs of human rights defenders on the ground, and in the creation of these materials.

Related: WITNESS On GitHub

Don’t see what you’re looking for? Our materials are licensed under a Creative Commons license and we encourage you to modify, remix or translate the content to better meet your needs.

To make that easier we’re adding our materials to GitHub, a version control system typically used by developers to manage their code but which we’re using as an easier way for interested activists and advocates to repurpose our materials.

This could be to translate materials into languages we don’t currently provide, or to localize guides to match local circumstances. For example, you could take our guide, “Filming Protests in Teams,” and remix it into “Filming Protests in Teams in Sāo Paolo.”

On GitHub, you’ll find WITNESS materials as text documents along with the illustrations and graphics we’ve used to create our versions. Take them. Use them. Remix them so that they best fit your needs.

Meantime, visit the WITNESS Library, download away and share with your favorite activists and organizations.

We’d love to know what additional resources would be helpful in your work. Share your thoughts here.