Justice has triumphed in Bukavu, where two commanders of the rebel militia called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have received life sentences for murder and torture, both constituting crimes against humanity, as well as pillage and arson. All 100 victims party to the proceedings have been awarded reparations ranging from 5,000 USD to 25,000 USD.

In 2012, the villages of Kamananga and Lumenje (South Kivu) were the theatre of barbarous attacks by the FDLR. Alleging the villagers’ support to a rival local militia, militiamen led by commanders Gilbert Ndayambaje (alias Rafiki Castro) and Evariste Nizeimana (alias Kizito) looted both villages, killed and tortured civilians and burned buildings to the ground.

Read more about the case

“We are delighted with this verdict,” says Daniele Perissi, Head of the DRC program at TRIAL International. “Impunity in DRC is rampant, including among armed groups’ commanders. This sends a strong warning signal to anyone committing abuses who might think their military power places them above the law.”

Videos are shown as evidence for the first time in DRC

This success is the result of a close cooperation between many actors, among which three NGOs: TRIAL International, whose mandate is to fight impunity for international crimes; WITNESS, which specializes in the use of video to defend human rights; and eyeWitness to Atrocities, which has developed a unique tool to record, file and verify videos used in judiciary proceedings. Together, they assisted the victims’ lawyers in collecting the strongest incriminating evidence, including verified video footage and photos – a first in the Congolese judiciary.

Isabelle Myabe, Program Manager at WITNESS, explains: “As part of the investigative process, we trained lawyers working on the case in the best practices of capturing and preserving video as evidence. During a fact-finding mission in July 2017, one of the lawyers documented evidence of mass graves in the targeted villages. An extract of this video was presented in the trial.”

In order to be admissible in court, the collected material had to go through a rigorous verification procedure, to ensure there had not been any tampering.

“During the investigatory missions, information was collected with the eyeWitness app to strengthen the evidentiary value of the footage presented in court”, says Wendy Betts, Project Director at eyewitness to Atrocities. “The app allows photos and video to be captured with information that can firstly verify when and where the footage was taken, and secondly can confirm that the footage was not altered. The transmission protocols and secure server system set up by eyeWitness creates a chain of custody that allows this information to be presented in court.”

Learn more about the use of audiovisual as evidence

“The atmosphere in court switched dramatically”

On the base of the collected evidence, TRIAL International assisted the victims’ lawyers to build their legal strategy.

“When the footage was shown, the atmosphere in the hearing chamber switched dramatically” testifies Guy Mushiata, DRC human rights coordinator for TRIAL International. “Images are a powerful tool to convey the crimes’ brutality and the level of violence the victims have suffered.”

TRIAL International, eyeWitness to Atrocities and WITNESS hope that this double condemnation will prompt other lawyers to use audiovisual evidence in criminal proceedings. They will continue to collaborate to help disseminate this practice in Eastern DRC.

Image credit: Augustin Safari Macumu/TRIAL International

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WITNESS makes it possible for anyone, anywhere to use video and technology to protect and defend human rights. 

TRIAL International’s on this case has been conducted in the framework of the Task Force for International Criminal Justice, an informal network of international actors collaborating to support the work of Congolese military jurisdictions in the investigation and prosecution of mass crimes in DRC.  

The work of TRIAL International on mass crimes cases in DRC would not be possible without the support of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Belgian Development Cooperation.

Media contacts

TRIAL International
Noémi Manco, Communications Officer (In Switzerland, French and English)
n.manco@trialinternational.org
+41 79 192 37 44

Guy Mushiata, Human Rights Coordinator (In DRC, French and Swahili)
g.mushiata@trialinternational.org
+243 81 085 80 47

eyeWitness to Atrocities
Nyangala Zolho, Communications Coordinator (In UK, English)
Nyangala.Zolho@int-bar.org
+44 33 00 240 789

WITNESS
Isabelle Mbaye, Program Manager (In Spain, French and English)
isabelle@witness.org
+1 646 249 4992

WITNESS’ partnership with Coletivo Papo Reto began in 2014. Upon learning that communities on the frontlines of police violence in Brazil were embracing the potential of video and social media to speak out—and at great personal risk—WITNESS’ Latin America team offered resources surrounding safety and security. In collaboration with WITNESS’ representatives in Brazil (Senior Program Manager Priscila Neri and Brazil Program Coordinator Victor Ribeiro), Papo Reto also pulls together teams of allies including activists, public defenders, and lawyers, to critically consider how to use visual documentation for advocacy, protection, and evidence.

At our weekly staff meeting, WITNESS staff, partners, and allies gathered to hear Papo Reto co-founders Raull and Renata speak about life in Complexo do Alemão, as well the collective’s process, challenges, and accomplishments fighting impunity in the favelas. The media is littered with stories depicting Raull and Renata’s community as one plagued by drug trafficking and violence, reinforcing a mainstream narrative that fails to account for the full experience of those who live in the community. Raull described the “war on drugs” and legal systems as racist tools of containment and control over poor communities in Brazil. As an example, he invoked the case of Eduardo de Jesus, a ten-year-old boy who was fatally shot in the head in 2015 by a police officer who supposedly mistook his phone for a gun as he played on his front stoop.

In the aftermath of Eduardo’s murder, Papo Reto was the first on the scene and quickly began filming and taking photographs to preserve critical evidence. Papo Reto’s presence and cameras prevented the police from tampering with the crime scene, a common tactic used to mask extrajudicial killings. Their involvement also initiated a forensic analysis of the scene, something Raull remembered as “the first forensic analysis of a killing in a favela that I’ve ever seen in my 28 years of living in Complexo do Alemão.”

Without Papo Reto’s visual documentation, certain victories would not have been possible: the preservation of the evidence and an in-depth investigation (rare), as well as the ultimate conclusion that Eduardo was indeed killed by police fire (even rarer). However, the officer was never brought to justice in the courts of law. Eduardo’s story speaks to the paradigm of police activity in Rio; officers are rarely held accountable for their actions, and the statistics citing frequency are shocking.

“In Brazil,” Renata informed the room, “one young black person is killed every 11 minutes.”*

“And the reality in Brazil is that a person is killed several times,” Raull explained. “First, they are killed by the actual bullet. Then, they are killed by the media narrative, which parrots the police version of events by describing that person as criminals and assassinating their reputation. And finally, they are killed by the legal systems that fail to hold perpetrators accountable.”

In the event of extrajudicial deaths like Eduardo’s, or the ongoing illegal invasions of private residences in Complexo do Alemão, Papo Reto both receives and produces documentation of violence, and uses it to publicly demonstrate the impact of these violations on the residents—with the ultimate goal of creating accountability and change. For the collective, mobile phones are “weapons of defense and protection.” Members burn through phones rapidly, filming continuously and tirelessly to capture the truth, often amassing a series of explicit and clear videos that can be used as evidence.

This summer, Papo Reto celebrated an important victory, when a collection of video footage was used as evidence in court to indict two high-level commanders for their responsibility in the unlawful invasion of private homes. This case is a significant success, considering the widespread impunity for abuses committed by police in favelas.

In contrast with the mainstream narrative of his community, Raull describes Complexo do Alemão as “a place with a lot of power and amazing ideas—a space of resistance for poor and black families,” who fight every day to combat the larger, very intentional, systems that seek to profit from the lives of marginalized residents. Raull and Renata are also quick to clarify that for them, “it’s not a choice to be an activist.” The violence faced by residents of Complexo do Alemão is a reality, and the documentation of that violence is a matter of daily survival.

“I am most scared of giving up and not fighting for a better tomorrow,” Renata explained, a sentiment that Raull echoed with resounding confidence: “I just need to know that you are with me, and for you to know that I am with you. I believe in that.”

Our session concluded with Renata asking all in attendance to please share the following message: “Stop killing our youth – the extermination of black youth in Brazil needs to end.”

Follow Coletivo Papo Reto on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

*Officially, police were responsible for 920 killings in 2016 in the city of Rio de Janeiro alone, and post–Olympics, that number continues to rise; the number of police killings was 78% higher in the first two months of 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. However, as is also true in the United States, statistics tend to be unreliable. Reporting of extrajudicial killings by police end up masked as “deaths by resistance,” with terms like “stray bullets” used to deflect accountability. Activists believe that the actual number of people killed by police in Brazil is as high as four or five times the official count; in 2014, the BBC reported that the Brazilian police kill six people each day.

Featured image: Raull and Renata on the subway in New York City, September 2017.

The Mexican constitution guarantees that indigenous communities will be asked about how their land can be developed or used. As the community built a legal challenge to the mining contract, the government tried to argue that they weren’t, in fact, an indigenous community and therefore had no right to protest the arrangement.

For the past five years, WITNESS has been working with the Júba Wajiín community to tell their story and defend their land. We helped create videos including “Júba Wajiín: Resistance in the Mountain of Guerrero,” supporting their land rights case. One of the videos targeted the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case. It focused on proving that the Júba Wajiín were, in fact, indigenous people since that was being contested by the government. Scenes included in the video showed traditional lifestyle, farming, native languages, and customs. And we helped them show how mining would destroy their land and livelihoods.

The video was a crucial part of the Júba Wajiín’s biggest victory in July 2017, when the federal court ruled the Mexican state has a constitutional obligation to respect indigenous land rights, and that mining operations could not continue without the community’s input. An ally noted that the ruling is an “unprecedented achievement” for indigenous land rights activists working against open-pit mining, adding that, for the first time, the Ministry of Economy “must comply with its constitutional and conventional obligations regarding the rights of indigenous peoples” when considering mining rights.

After the historic ruling in 2017, the Ministry of Economy appealed the decision. The appeal currently rests in the hands of the Circuit Court in Acapulco, Guerrero state’s capital. In order to highlight the importance of this case and make sure that the Júba Wajiín secure justice, WITNESS and Valerio Amado Mauro, President of Communal Property of Júba Wajiín screened the documentary at a film festival organized and hosted by the Mexican Supreme Court. At the screening, the community’s lawyer called upon the Court to bring about a final resolution to the case.

With this collective effort, WITNESS helped ensure that the voices of the Júba Wajiín were heard by Mexico’s highest court, by lawmakers, fellow citizens and grassroots activists. It also paves the way for many other indigenous communities who might want or need to use video protect and defend their rights and their land against extractive industries and government interests.

This funding will support our Mobil-Eyes Us (MEU) project which uses live-streamed video storytelling plus task-routing technology to connect the right “distant witnesses” – people who care about the struggles of communities facing rights violations but may not be physically present – to meaningful experience and action. Turning witnesses into engaged actors, MEU seeks to disrupt the bystander effect and mobilize a collective empathic response to human right violations. Initially, the project will focus on telling (and changing) stories from Brazil’s urban favelas, where solidarity and pressure can make all the difference. Most recently a small-scale pilot of the Mobil-Eyes-Us project launched during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The pilot in Rio involved collaboration with frontline activists in communities affected by human rights violations to share a series of live-streams and provide ‘distant witnesses’ with the opportunity to witness directly what was happening, and move from being viewers to active witnesses taking action in support of frontline communities.

MEU is a cross-cutting project part of the Tech + Advocacy program at WITNESS, led by Sam Gregory, Program Director.

To learn more about our Mobil-Eyes-Us Project and Tech Advocacy, please click here.

To read more about the Flex Fund, please click here.

The activists who took part in the training work on the most pressing human rights issues plaguing Cambodia today including land grabbing, forced evictions, workers’ rights, and restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression. Many come from communities that have experienced devastating human rights violations first-hand, such as workshop co-organizer Cheng Srey Vann, whose family and community were evicted from Dey Krahorm in 2009. Undefeated by her loss, she is now a human rights monitor and a strong advocate for other communities facing similar struggles.

Activists in Cambodia are using video extensively to monitor human rights abuses, inform and mobilize communities to action, and bring international attention to abuses in their country. Human rights continue to deteriorate in Cambodia, but because of growing awareness and solidarity, ordinary citizens are rising up more than ever to make their voices heard. Unfortunately these voices are being met with political violence, rigged trials that silence dissent, and draconian laws that control and suppress civil society, such as the Law on Associations and Non-Government Organizations. Still, many brave individuals are not deterred.

Video has become key advocacy tool in Cambodia, and activists are seeking ways to get their stories out to the world faster, manage ever-growing media collections, use video to train others, and to protect themselves and their communities while doing so.  At the 2015 training participants developed their skills in producing, archiving, and distributing video safely and effectively to support their goals. Since the training, they have created and released new videos, including ones that highlight opposition to restrictions on civil society organizations, associations and unions; and on issues such as informal economy workers’ rights, and disability rights.

Venerable Luon Sovath and Venerable Prim Houn recording video testimonies at Boeung Kak Lake community during training.

The activists have also been sharing video advocacy skills and knowledge they have acquired with an even greater network of local non-governmental organizations, unions, grassroots groups and individual monk activists. Our long-time ally and internationally respected “Multimedia Monk” Venerable Luon Sovath, for example, took the Venerable Prim Houn on as an apprentice and brought him to the WITNESS training, his very first. In less than a year, the Venerable Prim Houn has emerged as a prominent and prolific video activist. His videos, posted on Facebook, have been shared tens of thousands of times, and have attracted hundreds of thousands of views. 

Meanwhile, the Venerable Luon Sovath continues to visit and support people affected by land disputes, listening to and recording their experiences. He uses his videos “like a story in a book” to help people understand their rights, build solidarity, and envision a path to justice.

Since the training, LICADHO Canada has also developed a set of new training videos, adapted from WITNESS materials, on how to film effectively with mobile phones in a Khmer context. They have also translated other WITNESS training materials in Khmer.

WITNESS is proud to have partnered with LICADHO and LICADHO Canada over the past many years. As result of their work during this period, we have witnessed a transformation in the video advocacy landscape in Cambodian civil society. Today, it is a common sight to see people armed with cameras in every community and at every protest demanding justice, democracy, and accountability. With their videos, activists are revealing ongoing human rights violations and mobilizing citizens to stand up for their rights. Despite attempts to suppress their activity, activists continue to monitor, document, and spread the word about what is happening in their country. Now more than ever, the voices of Cambodian citizens calling for change are being heard.

WITNESS and its partners visited courageous American seniors in their homes to document their poignant stories about abuse, neglect and exploitation. With the video footage we produced a short documentary, An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America and over 100 video testimonies. These films and short messages were then sent directly to Congress with a request to pass the EJA.

While health care reform captured the national headlines, the EJA unquestionably deserves our attention. When asked about provisions of health reform that received little fanfare, former Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pointed to the EJA — legislation that gives our nation a solid framework to protect seniors from being beaten, neglected and exploited. She stated, “[The Elder Justice Act] has been an issue talked about for a very long time . . . . It’s now the law of the land. It was part of the underlying Senate bill, and I don’t think many people have ever focused on the fact that this is an important step forward for seniors in America.”

The EJA is the most comprehensive federal legislation ever enacted to combat elder abuse. The EJA authorizes increased federal resources and leadership to support state and community efforts to prevent, detect, treat, understand, intervene in and, where appropriate, prosecute elder abuse. It also authorizes funding for broad-based education and awareness efforts.

We are grateful to all those who shared their story. As Pat Smith, one of the courageous seniors so succinctly states, “I don’t think this is an issue people like to think or talk about.” Video advocacy and the passage of EJA take us one step forward in making elder abuse a national conversation.

Want to learn more about current efforts to protect American elders? We spoke with Marci Phillips, the Director of Public Policy at the National Council on Aging (NCOA), on World Elder Abuse Day.

Image: Video still from ‘Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America.’

This meeting was the beginning of a multi-year partnership between WITNESS and RAU. Since 2000, sexual violence has been used as a weapon by a number of Zimbabwean political parties to repress political dissent, intimidate political opponents and incur psychological damage. While working together RAU and WITNESS created a number of video advocacy pieces featuring the stories of survivors of physical and sexual violence. For each video, WITNESS worked with Kuda and her team to produce a Video Action Plan, a process designed to help activists think through messaging, how to reach their target audience and how to tell the story most effectively.

RAU and WITNESS took great precaution and care to ensure the safety of the survivors filmed in the project. They went through a rigorous process of obtaining informed consent, ensuring that participants fully comprehended the purpose and implications of the interview and the video as a whole. They also protected the subjects’ identities while filming to minimize the risk of retaliation against the survivors and themselves.

Kuda remembered, “People were scared to support us at first, as the issue of political, let alone sexual violence is a sensitive issue. And it’s understandable, because a lot of people within NGOs [in Zimbabwe] have been beaten up and arrested for programs that were regarded as political.” Regardless, the women involved knew that the stories must be told, “and if we get arrested, so be it,” said one survivor.

When the videos were completed, RAU traveled to communities throughout the country, hosting screenings, spreading wider awareness and encouraging education and discussion. As Kuda noted, “Using a written report, we’re already cutting off people who can’t read. If you can go into a village and just show a video, people can start to engage on the issues.”

Following one screening a woman stood up and shared that she had been the victim of politically motivated sexual violence. The woman had thought that her case was an isolated incident. Kuda explained how cases like this showed her how the videos helped the women themselves by giving them a way to reclaim their voice and heal. For many of the women who appeared in the videos, sharing their stories was a positive opportunity to talk about their traumatic experiences, often for the first time.

RAU’s videos were able to reach an even larger audience online, demonstrating the power of video to tell universal stories that resonate across cultures, languages, political backgrounds, and literacy rates.

Kuda sees visible results of the videos everyday. Leading up to the 2013 election, many anticipated that there would be a resurgence of violence, including sexual assault. But that wasn’t the case. Kuda attributed this to greater attention and vigilance surrounding the issue, stating, “they [potential perpetrators] knew that if they used sexual violence again, it would be out in the open.”

Since their training sessions with Bukeni and other WITNESS staff, RAU has produced three videos on their own. Kuda and RAU are now focusing on child marriage, another prevalent issue that is not widely discussed in Zimbabwe. Kuda has already started thinking about her Video Action Plan.

Image from 2010 WITNESS training with RAU in Zimbabwe

The Russian activist group LGBT Guide asked WITNESS’ Human Rights Channel (HRC) to review the video, which revealed the victim’s identity. In response, WITNESS contacted the uploader—an LGBT activist who wanted to spread awareness about homophobic violence in Russia—and encouraged him to use YouTube’s Face Blur function to prevent further re-victimization. Our HRC Curator, Madeleine Bair, wrote a blog post about the importance of visual anonymity and reached out to media outlets that had embedded the original video on their site. After WITNESS staff contacted several media outlets, Gawker Media and the Huffington Post subsequently replaced the videos they had published with the newly anonymized version, which concealed the victim’s identity. Building off of this momentum, PBS’ MediaShift reposted the blog, and HuffPo Live aired a segment that included Madeleine as an on-air expert speaking about the importance of visual anonymity.

With video-enabled mobile phones now in the hands of billions, and online video exposing everything from chemical weapons use in Syria to LGBT abuse in Russia and police brutality in Illinois, the need for tools, strategies and policies to enable the effective and safe use of citizen video has never been greater. While our outreach was too late to make a difference for this teenage boy, his story illustrates the unprecedented opportunities and challenges that video technology presents—and WITNESS’ efforts to confront those challenges with proactive solutions. WITNESS and the HRC are internationally trusted leaders. We instigated and influenced the implementation of YouTube’s Face Blur function in 2012, highlighting the importance—and far-reaching impact—of working with technology companies to make products safer for human rights activists.

Together we pressured the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring charges against Thomas Lubanga, a well-known Congolese warlord. The videos co-produced by Bukeni and WITNESS were used to sensitize the court to the experiences of children recruited for warfare.

On March 14, 2012, the ICC found Lubanga guilty of the war crime of using children in armed conflict. This was the first-ever ICC verdict. Video footage played a role at the trial. “We were unable to dispute the visual images or deny the sound,” said Honorable Mr. Justice Fulford, ICC Presiding Judge, “the evidences presented to us were credible and outstanding.”

After partnering with WITNESS for several years, Bukeni spent seven years working for WITNESS leading our programs in Africa & the Middle East. He now serves as a member of our Advisory Board. Watch more of Bukeni’s story:

Image: Still from A Duty to Protect: Justice for Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)