Fiction that Matters

Best practices in citizen video for human rights

The creation of the Human Rights Channel is a preliminary step to address some of these questions. Curation by human rights experts is one part of the equation, but due to the sheer quantity of citizen videos uploaded from places as disparate as Syria, Gaza, and Bolivia, it is not enough.

Activists and amplifiers alike would benefit from a more systematic way for content to be flagged as human rights related. We look forward to more conversations with our partners in the tech industry, including YouTube, about how their tools can improve the efficacy and responsible use of human rights video.

This video is one in a growing number of complex examples of how video can expose human rights abuses. It is up to human rights organizations, journalists, activists, concerned citizens and judicial bodies to make sure that the people behind the cameras are not recording in vain. The future of citizen video, like the cell phones recording Syria’s war, is in our hands.

peace—now:

Nov. 1:

Boys talk while walking past a damaged car in Atareb, Syria.

(Photo: Abdalghne Karoof, Reuters)

(via )

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.

• The big defection of this week was Syria’s prime minister Riyad Farid Hijab, who defected to Jordan.
• In another dispatch from Syria, Layla M. delves into why a significant portion of the population remains supportive of Bashar al-Assad.
• British photojournalist John Cantlie writes about his experience as a captive, alongside Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans, of militants in Syria. These weren’t Syrian radicals, though: these were Chechnyans and Bangladeshis, and, Cantlie reports, the worst of them were the British.
• The US hasn’t ruled out no-fly zones in Syria and is preparing to send shoulder-launched missiles to rebels.
• Jon Lee Anderson in the New Yorker on the future of this Syrian conflict.
• Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times in Foreign Policy profiling Irish-Libyan rebel leader Mahdi al-Harati, who moved from a leadership position in the Libyan revolution to one in the Syrian war.
• On August 4th, a busload of 48 Iranians (whom Assad-allied Iran claim are religious pilgrims) were taken hostage by Syrian rebels in Damascus. Iran has sought help from the UN.
• Egypt’s President Morsi fired his intelligence chief Murad Muwafi and the governor of Northern Sinai Abdel Wahab Mabruk in a military and intelligence shake-up following last weekend’s ambush in Sinai near the Israeli border which left sixteen Egyptian soldiers dead.
• The Libyan National Transitional Council handed over power on Wednesday to the new assembly. The assembly has chosen veteran opposition leader Mohammed Magarief as its president.
• Tunisian protesters in the famous town of Sidi Bouzid clashed with police as they denounced the Ennahda leadership Thursday night.
• Tunisian activist and blogger Lina Ben Mhenni was beaten by police during a sit-in in Tunis, also against Ennahda’s interim leadership.
• Amnesty International has voiced fears over Tunisian restrictions on press freedom and cited the arrest of another blogger/activist Sofiane Shurabi.
• African leaders failed to reach an agreement on use of force at a summit in Uganda to decide on deployment of a response to violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Secretary Clinton has urged the formation of a counterterrorism cell in Nigeria, and has offered US assistance.
• Lebanon arrested former minister of information Michael Samaha in connection to a bomb plot.
• A top Yemeni security official was killed by a car bomb in Mukalla.
• CFR hosted White House Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan for a discussion of Yemen. Spencer Ackerman provided a takedown of some of Brennan’s points over at the Danger Room blog as did Marc Lync on The Middle East Channel.
• How did the small cities of the Middle East and North Africa become forces for political change?
• Noted intellectual and academic Tariq Ramadan on Islam, secularism and the “Arab Awakening.”
• Iran test-launched an upgraded version of the Fateh-110 short-range missile.
• Afghan civilian casualties are down for the first time in five years. 
• Another green on blue attack this morning: a man in an Afghan military uniform killed three US troops in Helmand.
• Longform.org kicked off a new podcast series by interviewing longform journalist Matthieu Aikins, who talked with Evan Ratliff just prior to moving to Kabul.
• Reports say that the US and Pakistan are working on a new joint border security strategy.
• Steve Coll asks if Imran Khan, “a former tabloid celebrity aspiring to negotiate with the Taliban,” can run Pakistan (paywalled/limited to New Yorker subscribers).
• Over on one of the BBC’s blogs, a discussion of the British role in Bahrain’s oppressive governance.
• The legal drama surrounding the Chinese trial over the murder of Gu Kailai, allegedly by the wife of former political star Bo Xilai, continues. The trial was over in one short day, and all that’s left is the verdict and sentence.
• This week marked the 67th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Up at The Atlantic is a short video by the US War Dept in 1946, titled A Tale of Two Cities, documenting the development and the aftermath of the atomic bombs. 
• Best new Tumblr: “Confessions of a Defense Industry Executive.”
• Ian Johnson on the new geopolitical dynamics of the Olympics.
• Considering some of the networks of extremism centered in and near Ft. Bragg. 
• Nearly a year later, Marines remain somewhat divided on the notion of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
• The current suicide rate for the U.S. military is now estimated to be at least double or triple that of the US military during the Civil War.
• President Obama signed a law which, among other things, limits protests at military funerals.
• Academi (formerly Xe, formerly Blackwater…) settled a federal case with the DOJ, paying a $7.5m fine to cover 17 counts of arms trafficking.
• The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit tossed out a warrantless wiretapping case, overturning the damages awarded to lawyers for the Al-Haramin Islamic Foundation who claimed they were illegally surveilled under the Bush administration.
• The US is appealing a federal injunction of military detention law.
• Guantánamo Bay detainees have apparently moved on from former favorite Harry Potter and now The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is in high demand.

Photo: The Salaheddine neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. A rebel fighter runs for cover during clashes in the center of the northern city. Goran Tomasevic/Reuters.

To receive this round-up as a weekly email newsletter, sign up at the link or send me an email at torierosedeghett@gmail.com.

(Reuters) - Syrian free speech campaigner Mazen Darwish is to be judged in secret by a military court and may be sentenced to death without any right to defense, appeal or review, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists said on Wednesday.

Syria’s Air Force Intelligence, which arrested Darwish on February 16, has decided he should be prosecuted by a Military Field Court, the ICJ said in a statement, without revealing the source of the information.

thenewrepublic:

How did Vogue get duped by a dictator?

The latest Newsweek features an insider-y read by Joan Juliet Buck, the magazine writer who wrote the infamous 2011 Vogue puff piece on Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. I’m tempted to call it a cautionary tale for journalists—and that’s clearly how it is presented, with the headline “Mrs. Assad Duped Me.”

But to read Buck’s account that way, to assume that anyone could have found themselves in her shoes, would be an insult to most journalists. Unless Buck omitted a boatload of admirable details about Mrs. Assad in this current piece or only recognized the creepiness of her visit to Syria in hindsight, she most certainly was not duped. She knowingly wrote a glowing profile—“the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies”—about the wife of a murderous tyrant.

Amy Sullivan — “Vogue’s Suck-Up to Assad: Blame the Editor: Not the Writer”

U.S. Department of State: Fact Sheet: Key U.S. Outcomes at the UN Human Rights Council 19th Session

Reading between the lines of this post, it’s encouraging that the U.S. remains committed to engaging with the UN Human Rights Council. The votes on Sri Lanka and Burma are encouraging, as well as the side panels on LGBT rights and the Internet and Free Expression. If you haven’t seen it, I like the White House’s take, on a first reading, on exporting certain internet technologies and Iran. The section about Israel seems disingenuous to me. Drones are not discussed in Yemen, even though they are regularly used.

statedept:

The 19^th Session of the Human Rights Council underscored the importance of robust engagement at the Council, where the United States continues to work with a diverse range of countries from all regions of the world to address urgent human rights concerns.

U.S. leadership kept the Council at the…

A protest in Malaysia against the violence in Syria.

quietniss:

A silent protest

Malaysia based Syrian students stage a silent protest against Syrian government outside a mosque following Friday prayers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Writer Khaled Khalifa’s op-ed on Syria

Photo by No Lands Too Foreign

thepoliticalnotebook:

Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat perfectly sums up his country’s political situation. Read Max Fisher’s Atlantic article on Farzat and his artistic activism. See a further sampling of Farzat’s work.

(via thepoliticalnotebook)