Dalila, Author at WITNESS

Military forces in Brazil deploy checkpoints and smartphones against residents

Dalila — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:36:50 +0000

After it was announced earlier this year that the military will be in charge of policing Rio, favelas are already starting to experience the gruesome effects of the military’s presence in their communities.

On February 23, the military deployed 3,200 soldiers to favelas Kennedy Village, Korea, and Vila Aliança on the western side of Rio de Janeiro. As a result, residents were forced to start passing through checkpoints in order to travel outside their communities. This intimidating move on behalf of local and federal governments against favela residents is increasingly looking like a dictatorship rather than the democratic society it claims to be.

Armed with smartphones, military forces at the checkpoints enforced embarrassing violations of privacy, allowing residents to pass through the checkpoint only after completing a “background check”. In one instance, Edvan Silva Monteiro, a 47-year-old mason, had forgotten his paperwork and was prevented from going to work. Though Edvan was told by soldiers to go back home and retrieve the necessary documents, he was late to work and ultimately fired by his employer as a result of the incident.

The commander-in-charge of the checkpoints spoke briefly to the press, stating that the information collected by soldiers on their smartphones was input into an ‘army app’, which communicates with a criminal database run by security officers. The Military Command of the East—which controls the military intervention in Rio—did not comment on the matter.

We do not yet know the full extent to which the information gathered by soldiers at the checkpoints is being used, though this move is bringing up major concerns regarding tracking and privacy of favela residents. WITNESS will continue to work with community groups and monitor the situation. Click here for more on our Brazil coverage.

Coletivo Papo Reto: Combating Police Violence in Brazil

Dalila — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:51:41 +0000

Last week, WITNESS was joined in our Brooklyn headquarters by some of our most inspiring partners, Raull Santiago and Renata Trajano of Coletivo Papo Reto. Papo Reto is a group of community-based activists who use cell phones and social media to counter mainstream narratives, document abuses, and report police violence in the Complexo do Alemão, a group of 16 favelas in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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.

Deep Roots of the U.S. Ban on Trans Soldiers

Dalila — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 16:59:04 +0000

This article was originally published on Open Society Foundations. Written by Karen Stevenson.

President Trump’s recent tweets expressing his intention to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military whipped the media into a frenzy, occasioned an implicit rebuke from the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and reignited an already intense public debate about the rights and safety of transgender people.

As notable as Trump’s tweets were, however, they did not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, they reflect a broader political and cultural context—one in which transphobic sentiments and actions are often not only encouraged, but rewarded.

In our Capturing Hate report, for example, we at WITNESS delved into the world of transphobic online videos, which document hideous acts of physical and psychological violence against trans people: assaults, threats, intimidation, harassment, stalking, bullying, even murder.

These videos were not made with the intention of exposing or prosecuting abuse; they were posted—and are widely shared—as a sadistic form of entertainment.

While our goal was to find out whether perpetrator videos such as these could be safely and ethically used as a tool for the advancement of trans people’s rights, we found that a single derogatory search term led to hateful videos on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Not infrequently, these videos are surrounded by advertisements from some of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations, such as Walmart, Applebee’s, Heineken, and the New York Times.

In our analysis, we looked at a relatively small number of these videos, focusing on those that depicted acts of physical violence. What we found was profoundly disturbing. From these mere 329 videos, we documented more than 89 million views, more than 600,000 shares, and more than 500,000 “likes.” Nearly as shocking as their popularity and volume were the videos’ longevity: some were posted more than a decade ago, yet are still being seen, shared, and commented on by large numbers of people.

Worse still, these social biases are compounded by institutional ones. Indeed, it is likely that a larger cultural shift toward understanding and addressing the needs of trans and gender-nonconforming communities has been hampered by a lack of reliable data on the violence perpetrated against them.

A report released in 2016 by the National Center for Transgender Equality called this lack of information “one of the greatest policy failures facing the trans movement today” [PDF] and the FBI has admitted that its data on hate attacks underreports those inflicted on LGBTI people because of its dependence on self-reporting by local law enforcement. The Trump administration’s decision to exclude questions of sexual orientation and gender identity from the next census will continue to obscure institutional bias and the staggering amount of anti-transgender violence.

These videos exist to amuse and disparage. Unintentionally they also provide information that is otherwise lacking. In an irrefutable way, they expose the pervasiveness of transphobic attitudes and the intersection of online exchange with real world acts.

The titles, descriptions, and comments describing these videos reveal vehement attachment to gender expression as binary. Any transgression—including physical features, mannerism, and dress—is met with open hostility and incitements to violence.

Curating, studying, and analyzing these videos is a powerful way to expose transphobia, but navigating the tensions between revictimization and exploitation on the one hand, and the potent way video exposes abuse on the other, is an ongoing challenge. Unprecedented access to cameras and streaming platforms, and the ability to capture and share content, has led us into uncharted territories.

We all grapple with how to sort the deluge that is often unleashed without consideration and tell stories in a way that clarifies rather than confuses, protects the privacy of victims, and empowers rather than depresses our audiences. Our work here at WITNESS is dedicated to finding innovative, safe, and ethical ways to use eyewitness video for human rights.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that long before the 2016 election, many social conservatives had already made discrimination against trans and gender-nonconforming people a central element of their political program. Similarly, in a majority of U.S. states, it is still legal to exclude trans people from public accommodation, employment, housing, and health care. The president’s tweets are symptomatic of a culture in which hate for trans and gender-nonconforming people is still accepted.

And as Capturing Hate shows, the problem confronting those who support the human rights of trans and gender-nonconforming people is far bigger than President Trump.

WITNESS is a grantee of the Open Society Foundations.

Karen Stevenson is the Program Manager of WITNESS Media Lab.

Photo credit: © Kent Nishmura/Washington Post/Getty

Filming Hate Tips now available on video

Dalila — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 03:18:30 +0000

WITNESS’ Asia-Pacific team adapted a new video from our Filming Hate tips – a primer for using video to document human rights abuses. “Filming Hate” guides activists through documenting abuses safely, providing context, verifying footage, and sharing that footage responsibly. We hope that the guidance enclosed will help millions of bystanders become witnesses, and hence human rights defenders, spurred to combat hatred by wielding a powerful weapon —their smartphone.

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.

Indigenous communities win land rights victory in Mexico’s federal court

Dalila — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:02:06 +0000

In 2011, the indigenous Júba Wajiín community learned that the Guerrero state government had granted mining rights to two companies. The rights—which would encompass 80% of the indigenous community’s lands—had been granted without consultation with the Júba Wajiín.

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.

WITNESS joins Battle for the Net on July 12th

Dalila — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 19:04:22 +0000

This Wednesday, July 12th, WITNESS will participate in the internet-wide “Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality”. WITNESS is partnering with Battle for the Net and thousands of other organizations, internet users, and companies concerned with the preservation of a free and open internet.

What is net neutrality?

“Net neutrality” is the concept that internet service providers should allow full access to all internet content, applications, and services, regardless of the source. Essentially, net neutrality ensures that service providers cannot serve their own interests by controlling access to specific products or websites.

Why is net neutrality important?

In 2015, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in favor of strong net neutrality rules that explicitly prohibit service providers from utilizing “fast lanes” for favored sites that can afford to pay for faster service, and “slow lanes” for everyone else. Under these current FCC regulations, “your service provider can’t slow your Amazon Prime Video stream to a crawl so you’ll keep your Comcast cable plan, and your mobile carrier can’t stop you from using Microsoft’s Skype instead of your own Verizon cell phone minutes”.

However, the largest service providers in the US (Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T) are currently lobbying the FCC and Congress to end net neutrality regulations.

President Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai supports the large service providers seeking to end net neutrality. This past April, Chairman Pai announced a sweeping plan to roll back current net neutrality standards. If the federal government enacts these policies, sites will be forced to pay big cable in order to remain relevant, and entities who are unable to pay the price will fall to the wayside. The internet would effectively serve the bottom line of massive telecommunications companies.

What are the global impacts of US net neutrality?

The fight for net neutrality is not exclusive to the United States. The internet serves as a global platform to connect communities, innovators, artists, activists, and others. For WITNESS and other human rights organizations, the internet allows communication with activists regardless of their location. WITNESS depends on a free internet to provide resources and support to people advocating for their most basic human rights.

In 2015, when the US first made steps to pass net neutrality rules, the impact was felt on a global level; the EU subsequently passed similar net neutrality legislation amidst growing understanding that net neutrality should be a prioritized for all nations.

The United States is a leader in terms of net neutrality, serving as an example for governments considering similar protections. If net neutrality regulations in the United States are thrown out, the global trend toward net neutrality would be severely and negatively impacted .

Without net neutrality, internet users — whether they be human rights nonprofits, large companies, or individuals –will no longer have access to the free and full internet so crucial to their work.

What can we do?

Join the protest on July 12th, when the internet will come together to stop the FCC from rolling back net neutrality and to keep the internet free of blocking, censorship, and extra fees. Write letters to your representatives and the FCC, share resources on social media, display an alert on your homepage — Battle for the Net has provided the tools you need to take action and help save the internet. Learn more here!

MEU Project Awarded Flex Fund 2017 Grant

Dalila — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 16:49:57 +0000

WITNESS is excited to announce a grant from the Flex Fund for 2017, supported by Skoll Foundation, Ford Foundation, I Just Films, and BRITDOC. Launched in 2016, the Flex fund was created to support the most innovative and creative projects emerging from partnerships between moving image storytellers and social entrepreneurs, and WITNESS is proud to join the ranks of inspiring Flex Fund grantees.

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.

WITNESS Social Media Toolkit

Dalila — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 15:13:37 +0000

Bolster the fight for human rights—with a simple click! You can find our most updated messages, calls to action, and ultra-shareable images for the Twitterverse, Facebook world, and Insta-sphere. Everything you see here can be shared, remixed, reposted, re-tweeted to your heart’s delight.

By supporting WITNESS, you are taking action by using your voice to help expose the truth, generate awareness, and join the fight for justice and accountability, all in the name of human rights.

Hashtags: #Video4Change #IAmAWitness #BeAWitness

SHARE!

Eyes on ICE:

For Twitter & Instagram:

Filming encounters with #ICE can expose #humanrights abuses, deter violence, substantiate reports and serve as evidence. However, you must make sure to take your safety into account first. More tips on filming ICE here: https://wit.to/FilmingICE

These tip sheets and resources will tell you how to safely, ethically and effectively film immigration abuses by #ICE agents, Border Patrol, and other immigration enforcement officials: http://bit.ly/EYESonICE

Have you or anyone you know been a victim of abuse by #ICE or other #immigration? Log onto http://bit.ly/EYESonICE to find out how YOU can help expose their abuses.

For Facebook:

If you or anyone you know has filmed an encounter with ICE, here are a few things that you should consider before sharing the video publicly: https://wit.to/FilmingICE

These tip sheets and resources will tell you how to safely, ethically and effectively film immigration abuses by ICE agents, Border Patrol, and other immigration enforcement officials: http://bit.ly/EYESonICE

WITNESS Library

For Twitter & Instagram:

Want to use video in your #socialjustice campaign? Need tips on filming protests? Visit our free resource library! https://library.witness.org/

Do YOU want to make a difference by using #video, but not sure how? Log onto https://library.witness.org/ to find out how you can create #socialchange.

For Facebook:

From basic production tips to more specific resources on topics ranging from archiving and how to use video as evidence, our library has you covered with free resources, guides, how-to videos and more in more than 20 languages. Check them out here: https://library.witness.org/

Did you recently film a protest or a rally and not sure how what to do with the video? Head over to https://library.witness.org/ to find out the next steps!

Our partners at Coletivo Papo Reto report that every 11 minutes, a black youth in Brazil is killed. Take action by sharing their message on your social timelines.

Instagram

Twitter

Sample Tweets

The power of video can bolster the fight for human rights change

I am a Witness and the world watches with me

I support @witnessorg because they will ensure that more video = more rights

…or click on the pics below for a simple and easy re-tweet!

Facebook

Share on your wall

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Add a frame to your profile picture! Click HERE and type “WITNESS 25” into the search bar to find the #IAmAWitness frame.

Peter Gabriel: Video Will Bring Us Justice in the Long Run

Dalila — Mon, 22 May 2017 19:07:44 +0000

This article was originally published on Time.com

It was 1991. A plumber planning to record the Los Angeles marathon with his newly acquired Sony Handycam was trying it out when he heard a commotion outside and saw flashing sirens below his apartment window. He pressed the record button and began filming the brutal beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department. Within 12 hours, it had been seen around the world. The video sparked outrage and brought a new focus onto police conduct and brutality, racial injustice and human rights.

A couple of years earlier, I had a life-changing experience as part of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! tour. I was profoundly shocked by my conversations with many victims of human-rights abuses, both by the extent of their suffering but also by how often their horrific experiences were denied and buried.

I believed then what I still believe today — that people armed with cameras can create change. With cameras in our hands, we all can protect and defend human rights.

And so in 1992, I helped found WITNESS. The organization is based on the idea that technology can transcend all borders and that information is power. Change flows when the right tools are in the right hands with the right skills.

In the last 25 years, technology has evolved many times over. Heavy, expensive video cameras have been shrunk into chips, and a tiny lens is found in every cell phone. There are now very few people who do not have access to a cell phone. More video is generated in a day today than was generated in an entire year when WITNESS was formed. And that cell phone in your pocket has the power to capture what’s going on and use it to ignite change.

In 2014, a Staten Island grand jury declined to charge a New York City police officer in the death of Eric Garner. His death and last words “I can’t breathe” became a rallying cry for a new generation of activists fighting to end police misconduct. Mr. Garner’s death was captured on cell-phone video and circulated widely on social media and news outlets around the world. The prevailing opinion was that the officers in charge would face justice and be held accountable for their misdeeds. That was not the result.

In April, the world was yet again shocked and horrified by images coming out of Syria. The use of sarin in a chemical weapons attack in the rebel-held city of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province and the subsequent airstrike on the hospital tending the survivors of the attack were captured on video. In the aftermath of the attack, President Bashar Assad claimed that the videos of the attack were faked. The authenticated video evidence of the attacks, verified on multiple fronts, proves otherwise. This evidence is irrefutable.

Examples like these may leave us at a loss. Crimes were documented — and the footage captured circled the globe many times over. Sometimes, documenting a human rights crime doesn’t directly lead to justice. But it can galvanize a movement. It can be proof regardless of what a jury decides. Most importantly, it can transform public opinion as well as national and international policies.

We may not see the outcome we want when we want it, but there is power in arming truth with evidence.

The reality is that human-rights crimes happen all around us, and most of us have the tools to document them. We need to not only show the truth, but to verify and prove it. We need to know how to save, protect and curate our video footage, because in most cases the road to justice is long and difficult.

At times, it seems like we live in the post-truth age. Propagandists sit alongside those in power who see our world as theater, in which shocking news stories are rapidly countered by fabricated accounts suggesting that the opposite happened. We end up stunned and subdued, unsure of what we can and cannot believe. When you factor in that we only end up seeing the news that is increasingly chosen for us through algorithms and our own filter bubbles, the truth appears elusive.

One way to counter this is to empower, protect and champion the storyteller and the human rights activist. History shows us time and time again the power of truth. The most effective way to counter Holocaust deniers was by diligently assembling the stories and first-hand accounts of survivors. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in the wake of South Africa’s apartheid, letting people have their stories seen and heard is an act that itself is empowering and is the foundation for justice.

I still believe that seeing is believing. The value of video footage lies not just in its existence, but in the inability to deny what is captured for posterity.

Timely, accurate and impartial information is the most powerful force we have to protect the fundamental rights of all people. Now more than ever, there are more bystanders willing to step forward and speak truth to power. And, as ever, they need your help to do it.

Photo Credit: John Molloy – Getty Images

WITNESS Co-Hosts Video for Change Workshop at CheckCon 2017

Dalila — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 21:39:15 +0000

WITNESS is joining a group of inspiring organizations in Beirut for this year’s CheckCon, a 3-day event that aims to bring together 80+ grassroots media collectives, digital technology enthusiasts, professional journalists, and media students & scholars from across the Arab region to reflect on the experiences, successes, challenges and lessons learned since 2011.The conference builds on five years of work on the Check project in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, the US and the UK, and brings together everyone who has contributed to the project since 2011, including speakers and participants from Check partners’ network.

The Check Project has worked to build online tools, support independent journalists, and develop media literacy training resources that aim to improve the investigative quality of citizen journalism and help limit the rapid spread of rumors and misinformation online.

Our MENA Sr. Program Coordinator Raja Althaibani will speak on a panel with our partners at Syrian Archive along with Bellingcat and Meedan. This panel will be followed by a workshop covering:

Un/ Framing Syria : Citizen content and conflict mediation in the digital age
Experiences from the field: Using Video for Change in the MENA
Archiving the Syrian War
Fact-checking video narrative of conflict: Analyzing airstrikes in Syria and Iraq

CheckCon’s free, public Unconference takes place on Saturday, April 22nd. Register here.

For more information on the conference and to view the full 2017 program, click here.