Together with rights groups such as our long-term partner Conectas, WITNESS has launched an online system that allows anyone who documents police violence with video to share it.

As Priscila Neri, WITNESS Senior Program Manager, explains to BBC Brazil:

The idea is to monitor citizen video and think about strategic uses for these videos… Until now, the use of images has been reactive. If someone is arrested or charged for something they did not do, lawyers seek to mobilize pictures and videos that prove otherwise. We need a proactive strategy in the accountability process where we not only act in defense but also in indictment.

Over on the WITNESS Blog, Priscila explains how all this works. She also explains how creating a catalog of videos that document abuse can help improve the human rights situation in Brazil.

[It’s important] to connect these videos to each other in order to illustrate the pattern of violations and counter the allegation that any abuse is an isolated incident perpetrated by “bad apples”.

To address this challenge, WITNESS and partners are launching a collaborative database that will use Google Forms to monitor, catalogue, organize and systematize videos and photos of police violence during the World Cup protests as they unfold.  By inviting activists, protestors and journalists to use the Google Form to submit their images of police violence, the database will help connect those dots while collecting precious information to fuel advocacy and legal efforts in the months to come.

Police violence in Brazil has reached epidemic proportions. It is estimated that police kill more than 10,000 people each year across the country (in comparison, 2,959 civilians were killed in the conflict in Afghanistan in 2013). In June 2013, protests erupted across the country, sparked by forced evictions ahead of the World Cup and fed by long-running social injustices like police brutality. While poor communities and urban favelas have suffered at the hands of police and drug factions for decades, the brutal police response to these protests drew worldwide attention — in part, thanks to an outpouring of citizen video showing the abuses in real time.

Visit The BBC for the complete article (in Portuguese): #SalaSocial: Banco de dados digital cataloga vídeos de violência policial em protestos.

Visit the WITNESS Blog for Priscila’s article outlining this strategy: Call for Videos on Police Violence During World Cup Protests.

Via The BBC:

Chris Michael, from the Brooklyn-based human rights group Witness, describes the practical steps that protesters are using to stay ahead.

There are websites that allow for anonymous internet access, allowing people to organise without revealing identities. There are also means of circumventing censors’ attempts at blocking websites.

The Tor project software, an unexpected spin-off from military technology, is favoured by human rights campaigners.

Mr Michael says there are also “work arounds” to make online video and phone calls more secure from surveillance…

…In terms of posting videos of protests or repression, Witness is working with YouTube on a dedicated human rights channel.

It’s already hosting hundreds of user-generated videos from a wide number of countries, at the moment including Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Burma, Chile, Spain, Russia, China and the United States. There’s a daily update of video reports which include anything from student protests to forcible evictions.

Selecting and showcasing the most relevant videos is important to make an impact on YouTube’s global audience, Mr Michael says.

“Very few people are going to watch for hours. You might be able to get their attention for 45 seconds, that’s the world people live in,” he says.

Chris was in Pisa for the opening of the opening of the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The gathering included twenty activists gathered from some of the most difficult regions in the world. For more on the opening, and Chris’ thoughts, visit The BBC.