The Drum Beat – Issue 515 – Internet Human Rights Activism
October 26 2009
This issue includes:
* ACTIVISM EXAMPLES
* HAVE YOUR SAY: Newspapers and democracy.
* Advocates: PROTECTING, SHARING, DEBATING
* Please tell us your CI STORIES!
* HOW TO’S of internet advocacy and campaigning.
From The Communication Initiative Network – where communication and media are central to social and economic development.
Subscribe to The Drum Beat: http://www.comminit.com/en/user/register
Access this issue online at http://www.comminit.com/en/drum_beat_515.html
Drum Beat Subscribers: 44,673
CI Portal User Sessions, past 12 months: 3,030,625
This issue of The Drum Beat offers a selection of resources and initiatives available on The CI website focused on digital strategies and tools for human rights advocates. It includes projects using the internet for rights-based activism – communication, advocacy, and organising. It also lists a few tools and guides that website developers offer to human rights activists who hope to put digital resources to work for their campaigning. Further, it offers information sources on computer-based protections for human rights activist identities, web-based information, and digital sharing.
Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Contact Deborah Heimann at dheimann@comminit.com
INTERNET ACTIVISM: IN ACTION
1. Inzwa! – Zimbabwe
Launched in July 2009 by the Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe, Inzwa! is a weekly audio magazine that disseminates human rights information and news in audio format via mobile phones. The initiative uses Freedom Fone technology, which is interactive and allows users to both access and contribute information. Freedom Fone is a free open source software tool that can be used to build and update a dial-up information service in any language. It is designed to help organisations set up their own dial-up information services by removing barriers of cost, skill, and operation.
Contact: admin@kubatana.net
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/301341/307
2. Amazon Conservation Team Project with Surui Indians and Google Earth – Brazil
Members of the remote Surui tribe in an indigenous village about 1,600 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are working with United States (US)-based Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) and Google Earth to help protect their 600,000-acre reserve from illegal miners and loggers. The initiative, begun in 2007, reports that tribe members hope to raise global awareness about the destruction of the Amazon’s rainforest while allowing them to monitor the activities of those infringing upon their land rights. ACT provided the tribe with laptop computers with an internet connection, video cameras, global positioning system (GPS) devices, satellite maps, and other high-tech gadgets. With this knowledge and these tools, Surui tribespeople are telling stories about their culture, history, and traditions through Google Earth.
Contact: info@amazonteam.org
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/278458/307
3. The Potential for Migrant Workers’ Social Networking in the Persian Gulf
by Dana Alikhani
According to this 2009 online article, «[t]he plight of migrant workers in the Persian Gulf region has been an issue of widespread concern for several years.» The author describes migrant conditions and proposes a new social network initiative to help migrant workers «to interact with their existing connections, strengthening their weak ties with other workers, as well as other interest groups such as NGOs [non-governmental organisations] or activists». The article also proposes to make rights information available in audiovisual format, for situations where literacy poses a challenge.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/300318/307
4. Write Your Rights – Africa
Write Your Rights is a community empowerment campaign that invites the public to participate in the ‘open-source’ drafting of an international public health document, the Patients Charter of the Tuberculosis (TB) Community. The project organisers hope the campaign will be an open and participatory consultation process combining face-to-face meetings with use of online resources to publish, edit, and promote both the process and the substance of the document. The website invites input on the organisation of the tour, «The Rights & Responsibilities Workshop Roadshow 2009», as well as on the document.
Contact: voices@plhivcharter.org
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/130190/307
5. Migrant Workers Internet Radio – Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Middle East
Working in Hong Kong since 1984, the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) is a church-based regional migrant centre working for the promotion and protection of the rights and well-being of migrants in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. The APMM carried out a 12-month project to address the limited accessibility and lack of capacity of migrant workers in disseminating information. APMM trained a group of 20 migrant workers (most of them women) in radio production and broadcasting techniques. These workers then went on to produce and broadcast programmes in several local languages – Thai, Bahasa, and Tagalog – and learned how to upload re-recorded broadcasts onto the APMM website, thus reaching more migrants.
Contact: apmm@hknet.com
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/301521/307
6. The Survivor Mural Project – Global
Launched in May 2009 by a survivor of sexual abuse and rape, the Survivor Mural Project aims to raise global awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault. The project provides survivors with an opportunity to be heard through the creation of a mural signifying their experience. An online gallery, updated weekly, will grow into a travelling patchwork mural that in 2010 will begin exhibiting in physical spaces around the world. The mural aims to promote awareness of the sheer number of individuals who have experienced sexual violence first-hand.
Contact: kristy@survivormuralproject.com
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302011
7. Centro Civitas – Guatemala
Centro Civitas uses its website as the centre of an alliance of
organisations working with communication media on social and human
rights issues. The alliance, brought together between 2002 and 2008, engages in media monitoring by analysing publications for transparency, gender bias, and racism – sharing the results of this monitoring online through reports, bulletins, and video. It works on quality of reporting on children, builds capacity of information sources and journalists, provides resources for journalists in more remote areas (including providing internet access), and supports communication media through the publication of an online newsletter.
Contact: civitasguate@gmail.com OR info@centrocivitas.org OR sala.redaccion@gmail.com
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/293420
8. Enhancing Participation among Roma – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Spain
The European Roma Information Office (ERIO) is coordinating an initiative to promote discussion on how to enhance political and civil participation among Roma communities in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, and Spain. Participants hail from Roma rights organisations, trade unions, civil associations, administration and decision-making bodies, and citizens from both Roma communities and the majority society. This project draws on the interaction that both the internet and face-to-face encounters facilitate, with networking as the core strategy. By communicating with each other, Roma and Roma rights activists are exchanging knowledge on participation channels at a local, national, and European Union (EU) level.
Contact: office@erionet.org
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/299724
9. Human Rights Documentation in Palestine
by Willow Heske and Eliza Bates
According to this April 2009 article, media have played a major role in how the world views and assesses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The authors discuss the role of new media and the challenges Palestinians have faced in finding ways to supply accurate information about the realities of Israeli occupation and human rights abuses and in conveying this information to a global audience. Human rights advocacy organisations working to improve documentation of the occupation are seeking to use internet video posting.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298083
Please VOTE in our Democracy and Governance Poll!
How central to democracy are newspapers – some of which are being lost to budget cuts and other changes – as opposed to blogs, YouTube, emails, text messaging, twittering, and the like?
* Pivotal – informed public debate is impossible without this kind of quality platform and trained journalistic practice.
* Of some importance – we need both traditional newspapers and new media voices/venues to sustain conversations conducive to transparency.
* Unimportant – the internet and other technologies have enabled participation on the part of both citizens and journalists by trade, making open journalistic debate both possible and popular. This is the essence of democracy.
VOTE and COMMENT at http://www.comminit.com/en/node/288615/348
RESULTS thus far (October 23):
46%: Pivotal – informed public debate is impossible without this kind of quality platform and trained journalistic practice.
44%: Of some importance – we need both traditional newspapers and new media voices/venues to sustain conversations conducive to transparency.
10%: Unimportant – the internet and other technologies have enabled participation on the part of both citizens and journalists by trade, making open journalistic debate both possible and popular. This is the essence of democracy.
INTERNET ACTIVISM: PROTECTING, SHARING, DEBATING
10. Digital and Privacy Security for Human Rights Defenders
by Dmitri Vitaliev
According to author Dimitri Vitaliev, aspects of information and communication technology (ICT) have improved the security of human rights defenders (HRDs), facilitated communication and information exchange with partners, and increased effectiveness of their mission; but it has ushered in previously unknown vulnerabilities. His 2007 manual explains practical and technical issues of computer use in the context of defending human rights. Its objective is providing solutions to problems of privacy and security in a modern digital environment.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/189254/307
11. Digital Activism Survey Report 2009
by Katharine Brodock, Mary Joyce, and Timo Zaeck
DigiActive is an all-volunteer organisation dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use the internet and mobile phones to increase their impact. The group conducted a survey in 2009 through an open online form and then carried out 3 rounds of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Their aim in gathering this international demographic data was to get a picture of «digital activists»: people who use digital technology as part of grassroots campaigns for social and political change.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/299734/307
12. Human Rights Organizations and New Media – Natural Partners?
by Camilla Karlsen
According to this 2009 article, «[n]ew media applications such as cell phones and the Internet can greatly influence political decisions» when used to advantage by human rights organisations. Videos and photos, often taken using cell phones, can add to the data that are sought by organisations monitoring human rights abuse. The article analyses the challenges and gaps in engagement through new media. It asks how someone who has become aware of human rights abuse can then accomplish something through their engagement.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298076/307
13. AIDSLEX (the AIDS and Law Exchange) – Global
The AIDSLEX initiative consists of an interactive web portal that connects people from around the world for sharing information, ideas, and expertise on many legal and human rights issues related to HIV/AIDS. It is designed for activists, community organisations, researchers, policy makers, journalists, health workers, and anyone who seeks access to a wide range of resources about HIV, human rights, and the law. According to organisers, human rights violations continue to hinder the response to HIV/AIDS.
Contact: info@aidslex.org
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302313/347
CI STORIES
http://www.comminit.com/en/cistories
«I am a subscriber and regular reader of your outstanding site. Drum Beat is one of my favorite E-magazines. I referred your site to dozens of people. The news and information sources help me to gather knowledge and it also stimulates my thinking. I used it to take ideas and link those ideas with Bangladeshi context and write article/columns for National Bangla Newspapers.”
See http://www.comminit.com/en/cistories
The above story was received from a CI network member on how they are using The CI to support and inform their work. If you have experiences or anecdotes on how we have made a difference to your work, please tell us your story! Go tohttp://www.comminit.com/en/node/add/cistories (NOTE: you must be a registered, logged in user to submit a story)
To read additional CI Stories, go to http://www.comminit.com/en/cistories
INTERNET ACTIVISM: TOOLS AND GUIDES
14. Geo-bombing: YouTube and Google Earth
by Sami Ben Gharbia
Published May 1 2008, «Geo-bombing» describes one of the techniques used in drawing attention to human rights issues by associating them with specific locations and providing visual and audio evidence or testimony disseminated through YouTube. Those videos that are «geotagged» can be watched inside the applications «Google Earth» and «Google Maps». The process of marking the location of a video on Google Earth is done while uploading a video onto YouTube, using the editing function: «Date and map». Once the location has been recorded and the video uploaded it will appear on Google Earth. Any geo-tagged YouTube video will show up when the YouTube layer of Google Earth/Maps is turned on.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302582/307
15. Security In-a-Box: Tools and Tactics for Your Digital Security
Security In-a-Box is a collaborative effort of the Tactical Technology Collective and Front Line. It was created to meet the digital security and privacy needs of advocates and human rights defenders. The resource includes a how-to booklet that addresses a number of relevant digital security issues. It also provides a collection of hands-on guides, each of which includes a particular freeware or open source software tool, as well as instructions on how to use that tool to secure a computer, protect information, or maintain the privacy of internet communication.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/292767/307
16. Maps for Advocacy
by Sean O’Connor
Recognising the power of maps, the Tactical Technology Collective published this introduction to geographical mapping techniques in 2008. The purpose of the guide is to enable advocacy groups to explore how maps can be used effectively for advocacy. The guide reviews different tools and mapping techniques, explores certain types of data, considers the ways different data can be used, offers some diverse case studies to illustrate how maps have been used for advocacy, and provides a glossary that explains terminology related to mapping.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302134/307
17. Advocacy 2.0 Guide: Tools for Digital Advocacy
This project is intended to offer web-based techniques to digital activists for their online advocacy campaigning. Global Voices Online seeks to build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online. While the previous guide (Blog for a Cause!) focused on the effective use of blogs as an advocacy tool, this guide explores creative uses of other web 2.0 applications.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302206/307
18. An Introduction to Activism on the Internet
by John Emerson
This online book published in 2005 offers a brief introduction to different techniques of electronic advocacy using email, the internet, and other «new media» to bring about social change. It includes an overview and analysis of campaigning methods. This document was composed for a non-technical audience employed by non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations working on civil and political human rights. Each page includes links to examples, a list of additional resources, and a comments section.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/302201/307
This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Julie Levy.
The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership – ANDI, BBC World Service Trust, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Calandria, CFSC Consortium, CIDA, DFID, FAO, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Ford Foundation, Healthlink Worldwide, Inter-American Development Bank, International Institute for Communication and Development, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, PAHO, The Panos Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, USAID, WHO, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City garth@heartlines.org.za
Executive Director: Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com
Blog de Octavio Islas 