We recognize the great risks that environmental defenders take to stand up to power, and understand that the collection of visual evidence is only one strategy communities use to protect their environmental human rights. We hope to support this resistance by sharing the Video as Evidence Environmental Defense Guide throughout the coming months via our global campaign that amplifies the calls for Earth Justice. Join us by re-posting our materials or retweeting us using the hashtag: #Video4Earth. 

Read from the full blog post by Dalila Mujagic and Meghana Bahar.

Sam Gregory on WITNESS’ new strategic vision to ‘Fortify the Truth’

If Sam’s name sounds familiar – it should! He has dedicated over two decades to WITNESS, most recently directing our programs and strategy. In that capacity, Sam has supported WITNESS’ global teams and partners in more than 100 countries addressing urgent issues such as land rights, state violence, and war crimes – as well as spearheading our pioneering work on emerging technologies such as deepfakes and AI. Sam brings both the history and an ambitious vision for the future of WITNESS. You can read his full bio here.

Sam steps into this role at an exceptional moment for those concerned with information technology and human rights. This era of omnipresent video, growing misinformation, synthetic media, and declining trust in a shared reality presents a serious threat to the idea of truth itself. Sam has led a global effort to ‘prepare, not panic’ for the new digital landscape, fighting for preservation of truth, trust in critical voices, and media integrity efforts. He is also a fierce advocate for centering the voices of those most removed from decision-making centers yet most profoundly impacted by the proliferation of new technologies.

WITNESS started out democratizing access to cameras, quite literally putting the power of video in the hands of activists around the globe. Today, we take that mission forward, fighting to ensure that global human rights defenders not only have access to skills and emerging tools, but are the deciders on how new tactics are used ethically and with impact, and are central voices on the development of new technologies that will hurt or could help them. -Sam Gregory

Sam’s appointment concludes an extensive global search led by a search committee, assisted by an international recruitment firm, and informed by wide-ranging input from our global staff and stakeholders. We believe Sam brings the expertise, vision, and leadership required by this moment of transition for WITNESS. Sam’s track-record and commitment to fostering a participatory culture and systematic listening also creates an invaluable opportunity for WITNESS to strengthen its DEIJ commitments across the organization.

We would also like to extend our enormous gratitude to our outgoing Executive Director, Yvette Alberdingk-Thijm, for her exceptional leadership over the past 15 years, shaping WITNESS into the global human rights organization it is today. 

Thank you for stepping up, Sam!

With Pride and Gratitude,

The WITNESS Board
Monica Aleman and Polly Fields, co-chairs

Access to data about policing has become the subject of increased advocacy and police misconduct data has become increasingly available in the United States, leading to a growing cottage industry that has arisen around collecting, analyzing, and publicizing information about policing. Unfortunately, these efforts are often disconnected from organizing aimed at effecting change by reducing and eliminating police profiling, violence and criminalization. 

In an attempt to address these issues and discuss the potential benefits and harms of collecting and disseminating policing data, WITNESS co-hosted a 4-day online convening in collaboration with the Invisible Institute and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Full Disclosure Project in November 2021.

The event brought together grassroots organizers, advocates, data scientists, journalists, lawyers, advocates and funders. The full report from our convening is now available and aims to share the key principles, tensions and practices that we discussed; help guide ongoing conversations and development of best practices; and inform future project planning and funding decisions. 

Some of the key themes that emerged from our conversations include: 

• The importance of protecting privacy, agency and humanity of people whose experiences of policing are reflected in the data, and offer prevention tools and material support.
• Involve those who are most directly impacted by policing in the data collection, analysis and dissemination process. 
• There is no “objective” data.
• Decisions about which data to collect and how to describe and publicize it are subjective and political.
• Institutions and organizations with greater access to data must commit to making the information available and sharing it with directly impacted communities.

This convening builds off WITNESS projects and collaborations with groups like El Grito and Berkeley Copwatch in which we have co-created resources and guidance to support grassroots organizations in collecting, organizing and analyzing videos and data about the police. In 2018, we also co-hosted a convening in Chicago with the Invisible Institute to cover similar topics. Learn more about this work, the convenings and our partners here.  

CORAL is an initiative that spans the continent and seeks to share tools to strengthen community communication, with emphasis on the use of audiovisuals for the defense of the territory and the telling of their own  narratives. From September to December 2022, CORAL held the 1st Latin American School of Communication for Land Defense, in which the closing modules took place in Paraty, Brazil and Mexico city, Mexico. After the gatherings CORAL network has grown significantly to include the participants of this first school. Find more about this initiative in https://redcoral.la 

After seeing the violent response of the Peruvian government to the mobilizations that started on December 7th, the CORAL network released the following statement. Laboratorio Popular de Medios Libres and WITNESS have also joined forces in an open call for video evidence of human rights violations using an autonomous server, and working together with other members of CORAL, such as Maizal and Radio Kurruf, to create an archive that can preserve multimedia coming from Peru. More about this initiative here.

Read this statement in Portuguese and in Spanish.

To the independent, free, community, alternative media at Abya Yala  and beyond,

To international civil society,

To the governments and international organizations that are meant to protect and guarantee human rights,

We the undersigned, as representatives of community and alternative media, members of Indigenous and afro-descendant peoples, communities, and organizations of our Abya Yala continent, denounce the serious social and political situation that the Republic of Peru is experiencing, as a result of the legislative coup that has broken the rule of law in that sister nation.

We strongly reject the repressive use of the police and military forces that have murdered 39 protesters in 35 days, since December 7th, 2022, with direct shots to the body during the demonstrations and/or using snipers. In total, the number of deaths from the current social protests amounts to 47 people and hundreds of people injured.

Despite reaching office democratically, since the beginning of President Castillo’s administration in July 2021, the Peruvian congress has been characterized by a racist, classist and violent vision and narratives, and put forth a fierce fight for Castillo’s dismissal. The congress has dedicated itself solely to block the work of the executive branch, which has prolonged the stagnation of the State and the country. Six presidents in four years demonstrate the political instability that obviously generates discomfort in Peruvian society.

We express our concern about the tepid role of international bodies; the UN and OAS, that are already per se delegitimized, reiterate their position at the service of the interests of local oligarchies and international corporations to prevail over the needs of the population in general.

As independent communication media and collectives, we stand by the generalized rejection against  the media concentration that exists in Peru, where the radioelectric space is monopolized by a handful of companies that use it to spread a racist, classist and patriarchal narrative that confuses and polarizes public opinion.

We denounce that the state of national emergency, decreed by who currently usurps the presidency of Peru, is an open letter for the violation of all human rights, a history sadly repeated in the territories of our Abya Yala where repression gave rise to barbarism; a situation which we deeply regret again in Peru.

We urge the national and international actors involved to channel mechanisms for the restoration of constitutional order and respect for human rights in Peru.

We call on governments, institutions, international bodies and civil society throughout the continent to ensure that the Peruvian State respects and acts in accordance with the principles that govern human life on the planet; peace and respect for life, self-determination and autonomy of the peoples.

We invite the various free, popular and community communication groups to articulate in the dissemination and denunciation of human rights violations against the Peruvian people and their just demands.

From all Latin America we send our solidarity and support to the sisters and brothers of Peru. We are peoples of peace weaving the word to communicate the defense and care of life and territories.

Abya Yala, January 11, 2023.

Ms. Cai has over a decade of experience working with and leading teams responsible for creating and maintaining policies that define acceptable behavior and content in online communities and platforms. As a trust and safety expert, Ms. Cai helps tech companies think about how to develop effective content moderation while also supporting employee well-being, and educating the public about why such practices are valuable to a healthy internet. 

Ms. Diniz is an award-winning academic, filmmaker, and activist who has expertise in using video and research for evidence-based advocacy, policy change, and strategic litigation for human rights. She is internationally recognized for her longstanding commitment to reproductive rights and health and efforts to combat violence against women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is an active presence on social media platforms where she engages in dialog with thousands of followers and community members. In 2020, Ms. Diniz won the prestigious Dan David prize, a lifetime achievement recognition for her contributions to gender justice.

Ms. Owono is the executive director of Internet Sans Frontieres, an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and an inaugural member of the Meta Oversight Board. She founded the Content Policy and Society Lab at Stanford University, which prototyped a novel approach to multi stakeholder collaborations on major content policy challenges. With expertise leading academic and non-governmental organizations, she regularly convenes representatives from companies, governments, civil society, with content moderators and researchers to exchange ideas and collaborate on the creation of rights-based policies and regulations to support a truly global internet. She recently published an analysis of Content Governance in the Metaverse. 

“We welcome Adelin’s and Julie’s deep, global experience and practical expertise on how to make the internet a more equitable space for participation and free expression,” said WITNESS Executive Director, Yvette Alberdingk Thijm. “Debora’s knowledge on gender equality and her leadership in video advocacy as a tool to realize rights will bring essential insights to our global team. As members of our Board of Directors, we look forward to drawing on their valuable guidance as we embark on our new “Fortifying the Truth” Strategic Vision, continuing to support the most vulnerable and marginalized communities turning to video and technology to create human rights change.”

Read more about Adelin Cai here, Debora Diniz here, and about Julie Owono here.

And read more about our full Board of Directors here. 

These in-person gatherings are the final modules of ‘CORAL’, which started in September as an online school and has been meeting to cover topics on narratives, strategic communication, and more. The objectives of the gathering are to strengthen the strategic vision of groups and collectives working in communications, in particular audiovisual media, to advance their skills around advocacy and documentation, and to provide tools to help them train others in their communities.

This work builds off WITNESS’s long-standing partnerships and projects with collectives, communities and movements working to respond to violence and aggression against their lives and the land. Through this work we’ve had the opportunity to provide documentation workshops at large gatherings of Indigenous Peoples’ in Brazil and co-created guides such as the Guide to Strategic Communication in Defense of the Territory in Mexico.

Follow our social media channels (@WITNESS_USA, @WITNESS_es and @witness_Brasil) and visit https://redcoral.la to learn more about the work. Continue reading for additional information about CORAL. 

MORE ABOUT CORAL:

#CORAL is a network of #audiovisual groups from different places, that support movements defending their land, territory and #commons. It seeks to strengthen community #communication for the #defense of the territory and the construction of its own #narratives

Faced with the excessive advance of the borders of capital and extractivism, communities, populations, social movements, civil and collective organizations need to organize themselves to respond to the violence and aggression that threaten their lives, bodies and territories.

Therefore, our focus is the training of trainers to support the continuity of processes in popular education, especially the #communication strategy for the development of the different territories and communities.

Do you want to know more? Visit: https://redcoral.la

CORAL is a network of audiovisual groups in Abya Yala (an Indigenous term used to refer to the “Americas”) that from different geographies accompany struggles for the defense of the land, territory and common goods. This articulation of regional scope seeks to share tools to strengthen community communication, with an emphasis on the use of audiovisuals for defense and the construction of their own narratives.

Thus, in the face of the advance of the borders of capital and extractivism, communities, peoples, movements, organizations, collectives self-organize to respond to the onslaught of violence and dispossession that threaten their lives, bodies and territories.

The criminalization, repression, judicial harassment and harassment of human rights defenders is on the rise. This is accompanied by different media strategies to stigmatize and invalidate any alternative that challenges the progress of the so-called “development”.

For this reason, we see it necessary to add to the strengthening of the audiovisual fronts that are formed from different latitudes to give dispute in the symbolic and narrative field in the struggles for the defense of the land, the territory and the common goods. Our commitment in this area is the training of trainers that allows us to support the continuity of processes in popular education in the communication strategy to develop from different territories and communities.

Follow #CORALTerritorioAudiovisual for more updates!

WITNESS partnered with Memorial in the mid 2000s to co-produce advocacy videos about forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, and torture committed by the Russian military during the Chechen wars. The videos, “Missing Lives: Disappearances and Impunity in the North Caucasus” and “Crying Sun: The Impact of War in the Mountain of Chechnya,” centered the voices of communities directly impacted by so-called “counter terrorism operations,” and called for accountability.  

Based on our experience with Memorial and many other groups over the past 30 years, we know that frontline witnesses are navigating immense risks as they capture and share video documentation of potential human rights violations and war crimes. 

Building on learnings from these collaborative experiences, we evolved our training model to provide resources and best practices to millions of people. For example, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, we tailored and began distributing resources for witnessing war in multiple languages. And we continue to support documentation efforts during the protracted conflict. 

Memorial’s decades-long efforts to document abuses by the government against its people led to it being disbanded by the Putin regime last year. But its legacy lives on. And the voices of its leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and Natalia Estemirova, head of Memorial’s Chechnya office who was murdered in 2009, will not be silenced. 

We thank Memorial for its lasting contribution to the global movement championing video for human rights. 

As organizations that regularly seek funding to support our documentation and archival work, WITNESS and our partners at Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) – have seen how “traditional” funding requirements and guidelines often become significant impediments to our work, despite funders’ best intentions. With this in mind, we drafted an open letter that highlights five key challenges and offers constructive recommendations to center community and care in archives grantmaking.

Join us in adding to this conversation and making funding for community archives more impactful! One of our hopes for this open letter is to spark conversation within community archives across the country on how to advocate for this work. Head over to the Sustainable Future’s blog to read all recommendations. We encourage you to share it and welcome your thoughts.

Explore some of WITNESS’s archiving resources and projects below:

• People’s Database for Police Accountability with Berkeley Copwatch
• Policing the Police with El Grito
• Rohingya Genocide Archive with Rohingya Vision
• Should I Collect and Archive These Videos? tipsheet, co-created with Texas After Violence Project
• Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video

The coverage of SGBV in Nigerian media has significantly risen in recent years. However, unethical reporting that harms survivors of SGBV even more, is widespread. Sensationalised headlines and visuals, language that blames the victims, and terms like “sex scandal” distort the crime of rape and foster a culture of shame and silence.

The media is critical in dismantling rape culture, protecting survivors, and fighting for justice and accountability. However, media practitioners, including bloggers, must ensure they do not become a vehicle for perpetuating disinformation that protects the perpetrators – Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi, Executive Director, STER

The reporting of SGBV in the media affects how society views this type of violence. Thus, there is a need for responsible and transformational media coverage of SGBV, particularly by influencers and bloggers who work in new media. 

The media, including social media, has demonstrated great potential to mobilise support against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). However, viable disinformation incendiaries limit the collective impact of civil society actors and well-meaning individuals in eliminating SGBV and have significantly contributed to the injustice experienced by survivors – Nkem Agunwa, Africa Project Coordinator, WITNESS

The guide offers helpful guidelines through case study analysis to ensure that journalists and other stakeholders in the media ecosystem prioritise ethical considerations that centre on survivors in their reporting.

Download now: SGBV Reporting Guide

Contact: africa@witness.org

RightsCon is online again this year and will be taking place from Monday, June 6th to Friday, June 10th 2022. Registration is open until June 3rd with both free and paid tickets options available to everyone: www.rightscon.org/register-2022 

You can catch our team leading sessions alongside long-term partners and allies, offering workshops, community labs, and panels on a range of topics. These topics are priority areas for many of the communities we work with closest across the world. The guidance we will be sharing is sourced from 30 years of working with community defenders on matters at the intersection of video, technology, and human rights. 

RightsCon is one of the many spaces where our guidance is strengthened through the sharing and exchanging of the wisdom of experience in community with other activists.

Here’s where you can find us (and note that you will have to create and account and login to see full details of most sessions):

Monday, June 6th

Getting it right: tackling misinformation with authenticity and provenance infrastructure that works for all

WITNESS Team: Jacobo Castellanos, Raquel Vazquez, Sam Gregory

Time: 1:15 – 2:15pm EDT

To promote participation from a diverse range of people in this session but also in broader discussions around provenance and authenticity infrastructure, our team members will first offer a brief introduction of key provenance and authenticity initiatives and scenarios, and then host an open discussion on stakeholder-centric concerns and opportunities (e.g. content provenance and authenticity in social media and its impact on community, civic and/or independent media). More information here.

Filling in the gaps: activist-led approaches to accessible documentation methods

WITNESS Team: Dalila Mujagic

Time: 2:30 – 3:30pm EDT

To fill the gaps that exist in comprehensive, accessible, and community-led documentation guidance—WITNESS’ Video as Evidence team’s Legal Lead, Dalila Mujagic, joined other facilitators and the Totem Project to create a free, online course on getting started with human rights documentation. The next step is to have activists and their communities lead the conversation on which aspects of the course they want expanded. The goal is to identify remaining gaps in knowledge that are important to participants’ communities to address and have access to. More information here.

Just Joking! Deepfakes, Satire, and the Politics of Synthetic Media

WITNESS Team: Sam Gregory

Time: 2:30 – 3:30 EDT

Around the world, deepfakes are becoming a powerful tool for artists, satirists and activists. But what happens when vulnerable people are not “in on the joke,” or when malign intentions are disguised as humor? This session focuses on the fast-growing intersections between deepfakes and satire, including examples of activism and well as those that attack marginalized communities. Sam Gregory, WITNESS’ Program Director will help participants explore current and potential uses of deepfakes and probe the ethical challenges of democratizing synthetic media production, including how to label these videos as they circulate online, and who is responsible for creating and enforcing best practices, protocols, and laws. More information here. 

Learn more: wit.to/JustJoking.

Wednesday, June 8th

Media Investigation and Documentation of Human Rights Abuses in Nigeria Using Technology 

WITNESS Team: Nkem Agunwa

Time: 5 – 6am EDT

Nigeria is the most populous Black nation on Earth. Many perpetrators of human rights abuses in Nigeria are never held accountable or brought to justice and this had led to further violence contributing to conflicts that are out of control. These abuses include unlawful and arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, torture, degrading treatment or punishment, life-threatening prison conditions, political prisoners, privacy violations, and restrictions on free expression. This session will explore media investigations and documentation of human rights abuses in Nigeria within the last decade that have leveraged technology and social media. More information here.  

How do NGOs ensure a strong, supportive organization culture for teams? Let’s share it out!

WITNESS Team: Sharon Harrison

Time: 7:30 – 8:30 am EDT

Driving strong organizational culture is Job #1 for Human Resources/People Teams in today’s NGOs. WITNESS’ HR Lead Sharon Harrison will join HR/People Team Members from Access Now in a session focused squarely on how NGOs and civil society entities can, and must, drive organizational culture to ensure long-term stability. Spanning employee support strategies, parity, inclusion and equity, and work/life balance, participants from around the globe will have the opportunity to share and inspire. More information here.

Thursday, June 9th

Learnings on tackling internet shutdowns in the MENA region

WITNESS Team: Raja Althaibani, Mahmoud Elmasry

Time: 8:15 – 9:15am EDT

In this session, our team members will shed light on the learnings and expertise from on-the-ground activists in the Middle East and North Africa who document human rights violations during internet shutdowns. This session will examine the different kinds of shutdowns across the Middle East and North Africa used by authoritarian regimes to repress, or help in suppressing protests or uprisings. Furthermore, the learnings shared here can strengthen the available strategies and tools for addressing the human rights impacts of shutdowns. More information here.

Get related resources from our #EyesOnShutdowns campaign site: wit.to/Internet-Shutdowns 

Inclusive AI governance: the role of civil society organizations in standards development

WITNESS Team: Jacobo Castellanos

Time: 8:15 – 9:15am EDT

This workshop will empower civil society organizations to play a crucial role in European AI governance through participation in technical standards development. While the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act features an array of protections for fundamental rights and public interests, it depends heavily on technical standards development to operationalize these protections for industry. Yet limited civil society involvement in standards development, along with the predominance of industry technologists, leaves a gap in necessary legal and policy expertise.

Workshop attendees, who will mainly represent European civil society organizations with expertise relevant to the AI Act’s “high-risk” categories and fundamental rights, can help to fill this gap. 

The aim of the session is to enable direct participation in standards development, and in the long term through contributions to policy work aimed at expanding their role. Jacobo Castellanos, Program Associate of our Technology Threats and Opportunities program, will be drawing from the feedback and experience of communities across the world who we have worked closely with in identifying priorities for content authentication infrastructures that center human rights. More information on this session here.

Calling on documenters, investigators, and lawyers: let’s talk “solidarity” across the digital evidence labor pipeline

WITNESS Team: Raja Althaibani

Time: 1:30 – 2:30pm EDT

Calling on documenters, investigators, and lawyers: let’s talk ‘solidarity’ across the digital evidence labor pipeline. Across the globe, documenters create and upload content depicting grave harms and violations of fundamental rights. Open source investigators probe, archive, and report on this material. Legal advocates carry a select few forward into case-building initiatives. Open source tools make it technically possible, and, arguably, easier than ever before to conduct a form of rigorous investigation without a clear, methodological need to foster personal relationships among the people involved.

WITNESS and Mnemonic are considering ways to counter such siloed workflows while writing and teaching the upcoming video as evidence guide, “Airstrikes: Visual Documentation and Analysis.” We want to know: how are you doing this in your own work? How do you wish others in our field would approach or work with you?

This community lab will seek to provide helpful tools for articulating good practices, challenges, and possible solutions. More information here.