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. 

Since we began working with the All Eyes on the Amazon (AEA) project, we have lost three from our community. This rivals the pace at which we lost friends from our work on Syria and illustrates the threat level that environmental human rights defenders face.

All of the defenders harassed and killed have stories similar to Paulo Paulino Guajajara: they are ordinary people who have been living on their land for generations, and when they stand up to protect their homes, they come up against companies’ private security, state forces, contract killers, or teams of aggressive lawyers. It is the same everywhere WITNESS works to support land defenders.

Environmental health is the umbrella human rights issue. If we fail to protect our land, air, water and atmosphere, not only will we prevent solutions to human rights abuses, we will exacerbate them. And the rainforest is at the heart of this. Deeply respected conservation biologists believe that once 25% of the Brazilian rainforest has been destroyed, the rainforest will disappear.

It’s already 20% deforested, and logging is spiking under Bolsonaro. Paulino is not only protecting the Brazilian forest, he is protecting New York City from deadly hurricanes like Sandy (coming in at over $70 billion in damages), California from destructive wildfires, and coastal regions from massive floods.

The loss of Paulino is not only a tremendous loss for the Brazilian and AEA communities, it is a loss for the global community because when defenders like Paulino stand up, they stand up for each and every one of us.

Add your name to this petition to tell Bolsonaro’s government to save the Amazon Rainforest and protect the lands of indigenous and traditional communities.

Trust is more important now than ever before. This spring 2019, WITNESS is changing the story. We will highlight the people and communities that fuel our movement, and show that without trust, in our partnerships and for human rights content, there can be no justice.

Cheryl Morris, Community Team @ VIMEO and WITNESS volunteer, reflected on “who can we trust?” As noted in Cheryl’s blog post:

“I am a young, black, first generation American woman from New York City. Following the indictment of George Zimmerman and the murders of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley by the police, I began to feel extremely weary of authority figures and fearful of any potential interactions between my family and friends with the police. When walking through the city, I found myself anxiously crossing the street whenever I saw an officer, my heart racing and palms sweating. It seemed as if anything people of color did could be construed by the police as dangerous…

My growing anxiety over the documented cases of police violence however, led me to become more involved with the community of grassroots activists here in New York. I found local rallies and demonstrations through the Black Lives Matter movement to take part in, in hopes of effecting some change within our country. I began to speak candidly with friends and acquaintances about the fears that myself and many people who look like me feel on a regular basis. I wanted to make sure that future generations of black and brown people would not have to worry about their safety in the way that my generation and generations before me had. Through these activities, I learned that I had people around me that I could lean on when I felt overwhelmed. Through my community I learned that I didn’t have to live in fear every day. Over the past few years, I’ve grown to learn that I could trust the community that I had built around myself — friends, progressive-thinking people of color, and allies.”

For Mother’s Day 2019, we also created a fundraising campaign to encourage individuals to donate $25 in their mother’s name. With a small donation of $25, WITNESS can help many more activists, human rights defenders, and vulnerable people to defend their human rights online and on the ground. 

WITNESS is building a movement based on trust, truth, and transparency – will you join us? Learn more about and donate to the campaign here.

As the executive director of a human rights organization and a member of a global community of activists, you have to regularly ask yourself an existential question: why do we exist? At WITNESS, our raison d’être is our belief that when human rights defenders can use video and technology safely, ethically and effectively, more human rights change will happen.  We believe that there are millions of us who could be defenders as we now can use the technology at our fingertips to create a just world: together, our stories, our truths, can create accountability for human rights crimes and mobilize a just society. This is very personal to me because it is why I get out of bed in the morning. But on a practical level, that existential question should underpin, on a daily basis, everything we do in the struggle for human rights.

This is why last December we brought our entire staff- from Malaysia, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, The Netherlands, and Senegal- to join their U.S.-based colleagues in Brooklyn, NY for our Global Team retreat. And the purpose of our existence was the question that simmered –brightly!- right below the surface as we took a critical look at the state of human rights in the world, questioned our priorities, took in feedback, analyzed our successes, anticipated our future challenges, and evaluated our partnerships and our methodologies.

In the fight for human rights, there are no guarantees of success, but in our 25 years in this fight, we have honed and fire-proofed our approach. In reviewing this past year, we celebrated successes with our partners and identified where we could do better.

We’re proud of the progress we’ve made as collaborators in the growing networks of resistance around the world, building capacity with activists to use video and technology effectively to defend their rights.  We (both WITNESS and our partners) saw stronger ‘ecosystems’ of activism emerge in a tumultuous human rights landscape. For example, an indigenous community in southern Mexico used video documentation and technologies that helped them win an important victory against abusive extractive industries with illegal mining permits.

We also saw how our ‘long bets’ worked: carefully planned, strategic steps against seemingly insurmountable systemic injustices and crimes have born fruit and created real cracks in the walls of impunity vulnerable communities endured this year. For example a groundbreaking investigation into police misconduct and extrajudicial killings in Brazil.

We noted the growing reach and use of our tailored, timely guidance, tools,  and resources, enabling communities to speak out more safely, document human rights crimes in ways that can be verified and trusted, and use video as a strategic tool to push for changes and accountability. For example, across the Asia Pacific region, acts of discrimination that target indigenous peoples and minority populations are on the rise. Based on input from partners, we produced a video with tips for filming acts of hate which was viewed more than 35,000 times via our Asia Facebook page.

Our strategies are anchored in deep collaborations, coupled with the strength and resourcefulness to respond to expected and unexpected challenges. These were the seeds for progress and impact that were planted along the way.

We also looked, critically and with feedback loops from our partners, at where we (as WITNESS or collectively) could have done better, worked smarter, could have been more focused or strategic.

One of our observations is that the phrase ‘tireless activist’ is a misnomer. We and our partner communities get tired, suffer setbacks, and face new challenges that were in no one’s plans – all the time. The mistake we make, over and over, is that, as human rights activists, in the face of mounting crises and phenomenal enemies, we don’t stop often enough to assess, take a breath, and adapt.  

Last year, in particular, the human rights movement was under constant attack. More defenders were killed in 2017 than any year before. Populism, repression, ethnic cleansing, blatant disregard for rule of law, were only some of the successive challenges we encountered. This work comes at a high cost to activists and brave communities who resist. We are in a crisis, but to be as effective as possible, we need to operate outside of crisis-mode.

The world is never going to be predictable, but we’ve built the capability to stop and assess into our plan for the coming year. Because, for example, when the WITNESS team paused, briefly, to discuss our learnings, something wonderful happened during our retreat: we realized how similar the needs on the ground were in one region to others and how we could adapt and share solutions hatched in one place to other places where communities faced similar challenges. For example, our work with partners in Syria dealing with large volumes of human rights documentation that they aim to turn into concrete impact informed updated guidance we’ve shared on crucial cataloging and archiving strategies with activists in Brazil, the United States and beyond.

As millions of people turn to their mobile phones and social media to share their stories of abuse, sometimes putting themselves at great harm, we see repeat patterns of the challenges they face. Building on what we are learning with our partners, we are devising ever-smarter ways to get solutions, tools, and guidance, urgently into the hands of the many, many communities around the world who are facing similar roadblocks to justice. And we’re taking their needs to the tech giants to advocate for system-wide solutions that can turn millions into safer and effective defenders.

To do this, we need to pace ourselves, be radical listeners to our partners and the landscape, and take the time to understand what we are seeing and learning. Then, we can act nimbly, practically, and effectively – to address the challenges and risks defenders face in creating impact.  For example, with more people telling their stories on video, which can be accessed by perpetrators of the abuse, we’re pushing for functionalities that protect people’s identities.  And we’re helping to remove the barriers that activists face such as ensuring their content can be preserved, trusted and found in an environment rife with misinformation.  

And when we come together in shared, networked advocacy efforts, and spend the time to compare and coordinate our efforts, like the groups we work with on exposing and addressing violations committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the United States, powerful alliances are built and our chances of success increase.

To do our work well, we must pause to listen, learn and adapt. That is, admittedly, hard to do in a world that requires immediate responses to violations of rights, a world where hatred and violence can move and spread quickly and easily and do more harm than ever.

In 2018, WITNESS is committed to partnering with marginalized and vulnerable communities, and building capacity for people to use video and technology to put an end to injustice.  And from time to time, this year, no matter how deep the crisis or how urgent the need, we will take a moment to listen, to learn and to ensure that our efforts and those of our partners will be more impactful than ever.

But we can’t do it without your support.

Between now and June 30, an anonymous donor is matching your gift. That means for the next two weeks your support goes twice as far.

Give to WITNESS and enable people around the world to #WITNESSTRUTH.

WITNESS joins the international condemnation of the murder of Honduran human rights defender Berta Cáceres on March 3, 2016 and demands an expeditious and thorough investigation so that these acts do not go unpunished. We also call for the protection of Gustavo Castro Soto, a Mexican human rights defender who was injured during the events, as well as all human rights defenders in Honduras and across Mesoamerica.

Berta dedicated her life to defending the land, territory and natural resources of indigenous peoples and served as the founder and coordinator of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). In 2015, she won the Goldman Prize for her tireless work as an environmental advocate. In recent weeks, harassment against Berta, COPINH and supporting communities had escalated. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) had granted precautionary measures for Berta following threats she received after supporting indigenous Lenca communities in Rio Blanco who are defending their land against the construction of the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project. On February 25, another Lenca community supported by COPINH was violently evicted and destroyed.

Gustavo Castro Soto is a Mexican activist and member of the organization Otros Mundos Chiapas/Friends of the Earth Mexico, the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) and the Mesoamerican Movement against the Extractive Mining Model (M4). Gustavo has also dedicated his life to supporting communities in Central America and organizing peaceful resistance to the imposition of neoliberal projects. WITNESS has had the opportunity to see his committed work on forced evictions and environmental rights. Gustavo was staying at Berta’s home and was wounded during the early morning attack on March 3rd, becoming a key figure for the investigation. Therefore, urgent action is needed to push Honduras and Mexico to protect his life and physical integrity.

This unfortunate crime adds to the escalating violence against human rights defenders in Mesoamerica and will have a profound impact on organizations and communities in Honduras and the region. WITNESS stands with the families, organizations, and communities close to Berta and Gustavo. We reiterate our strong condemnation and call for Honduras to immediately conduct a thorough investigation into the case and protect Gustavo and the human rights of COPINH members and affected communities.

We urge you to take action and add your voice to the call for the safety and protection of Gustavo Castro.

Update – March 8th press release from Otros Mundos.

By Laura Salas, Translated by Jackie Zammuto
Image: 2015 Goldman Environmental Award