Eyes on the Ground
Pushing for accountability since 1992, Witness provides training and support for the citizens behind the lens
With recent uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and the ongoing fighting in the Middle East, citizen-captured footage has become a vital part of conflict coverage in the media. Videos filmed by ordinary people on the front lines flood social media and video sharing services, including YouTube, where 100 hours of new footage is uploaded every minute.
But what happens if an act of abuse is captured on film and shared not with the intention of exposing the perpetrator, but of further harming the victim?
Last summer, American news outlets including the Huffington Post and Gawker posted a 20-minute video of a gay Russian teenager being attacked by a pack of neo-Nazis. The video is believed to have been uploaded by the attackers to publicly shame the 15-year-old, since the promotion of same-sex relationships, or “gay propaganda,” was outlawed in Russia in June of 2013.
“Say hi to your mom,” says one of the neo-Nazis to the victim.
“You will be an Internet celebrity.”
In an attempt to stop the spread of the video, the human rights advocacy organization Witness contacted the online news outlets that posted the video and informed them about YouTube’s face-blurring tool, and suggested they obscure the victim’s face.
“It’s not uncommon for perpetrators as well as activists or protesters to post videos,” says Madeleine Bair, the curator of the Human Rights Channel, Witness’s channel on YouTube that sources verified video content captured by journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens. “In a case like this, the video was part of the abuse itself. It was clear that there needed to be a public discussion about how we could spread awareness, while recognizing the right to privacy of the individual and the potential for harm in sharing the video.”
Witness was instrumental in urging YouTube to implement the face-blurring tool into their settings to help conceal the identities of other vulnerable subjects online.
“Visual anonymity or visual privacy may sound like a contradictions in terms, but people often wish to speak out and to ‘be seen’ while at the same time concealing their face and identifying surroundings,” wrote Witness program director Sam Gregory in a blog post. He continued:
Conversely, people caught in the background of a video may be unaware they are even being filmed in that moment and have no option to protect themselves. But imagine you are someone speaking out from a far more marginalized position, for example, a gay person in Uganda, or a rural activist in Mexico. As video increasingly displaces text as the primary mode of online communication, the need for options for visual anonymity will only become more important.
Since it was created in 1992, Witness has joined forces with more than 360 human rights organizations in 97 countries. It began by training grassroots activists to integrate effective video-production strategies into their work to bolster their campaigns. And now that nearly a billion people around the world have access to mobile video technology, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit is committed to finding innovative ways to expose a wide variety of human rights violations recorded by journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens.
“The catalyst for starting the organization was the Rodney King incident,” said Lisa Robinson, the foundations coordinator of Witness, which was co-created by musician Peter Gabriel after he toured with Bruce Springsteen, Bono, and other musician-activists. “[Gabriel] found that a lot of people had stories of human rights violations, and so often no one believed them.
“So he thought, what if activists or people around the world had a camera in their hand? What would that do for justice and accountability? Fast forward a couple of years later to the Rodney King incident, and for the first time, people saw the power of video.”
Today, Witness’ Human Rights Channel shares dozens of authenticated videos every week that document abuse around the world. Over the past year, they worked extensively with journalists and advocacy groups in Brazil, where millions of protesters took to the streets of São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro to fight social injustice and widespread political corruption during the lead-up to the 2014 World Cup.
While many of the over 700 protests that preceded this year’s World Cup began peacefully, several ended in chaos. Numerous videos on YouTube show the police showering crowds of demonstrators with tear gas, flash grenades, and, in some cases, live ammunition.
According to human rights organizations, 23 people have been killed by police at protests, and over 1,700 people have been illegally detained, while countless others have been severely beaten and injured.
Sergio Silva, a Brazilian photojournalist, lost an eye after he was shot in the face last June while attempting to document a 20,000-person protest against the rising cost of bus fare in São Paulo. “I’m a photographer sadly more known for the violence I suffered than for my work itself,” he says, staring directly into the camera with only his right eye. “I was struck by a rubber bullet that was fired by the military police. I lost my vision, the main tool I need to work.”
Amid widespread police brutality in Brazil, journalists and activists like Silva have repeatedly proved that their most powerful line of defense is their ability to capture incriminating footage. With help from Witness, much of the video of social injustice on the streets of Brazil is being catalogued in an effort to expose the crimes that would otherwise remain hidden.
“Witness’s role is to think about how we can support all of these people who are making videos in protests so they can have a better-quality documentation, and also more strategic use of that documentation in a push for justice and accountability,” says senior program manager Priscila Neri. “It’s not just about using video on the defense to show that specific protesters didn’t commit the crimes they are accused of committing, but also thinking of more proactive legal strategies that seek to use this video documentation to hold commanders accountable for things like excessive use of force or arbitrary detentions.”
In an attempt to urge the Brazilian government to end its violent policing practices, in March, activists working in collaboration with Witness secured a hearing in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. Its appeal opened with a collection of videos compiled by Witness that gave the commission a shocking look into some of the violence perpetrated by the police. Representatives from the Brazilian government read a statement that acknowledged Brazilian citizens’ right to protest but failed to mention any intention to crack down on police brutality.
That result is not uncommon: The existence of video evidence has not necessarily led to more police officers being held accountable or to more reparations for victims. “In fact, not a single police officer has been held accountable for the many different cases of violence that have occurred in the protests throughout Brazil from June of last year,” says Neri.
“With Witness, we are interested in how we can use more videos to help create a clearer path for accountability around police violence.”
Witness often works directly with people on the ground to provide tactical support that aims to protect those who shoot and share particularly traumatic footage online. In addition to its work around the World Cup, Witness has been organizing a database of videos that provide evidence of some of the estimated 250,000 forced evictions preceding the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
To date, Witness and its advocacy partners in Brazil have compiled 114 videos that clearly capture people as they are dragged from their homes by riot police with no forewarning, as well as multiple instances of entire communities being razed to the ground.
Edilson is one of the former residents of the Restinga community in Rio de Janeiro, which city officials ordered to be torn down to make way for the construction of a highway to service the World Cup and the Olympic Games. “At 10 a.m. there were machines, police officers, special riot forces with large weapons, and they started emptying out the houses,” he says in a video filmed on the site where his house once stood. “If someone refused to leave they would take that bulldozer and start breaking down the door. The officers would come into your house, take you out by force, and then demolish it.”
By expanding its training to grassroots activists and partnering with YouTube to create the Human Rights Channel, Witness has created a global network on which anyone can find and share videos that expose widespread abuse. “Witness has always done intensive training on the ground helping people to understand how to film effectively,” says Morgan Hargrave, the systems change coordinator for Witness. “That’s a huge need, and thinking about how we address that need in a world where everyone has a video camera in their pocket is fascinating.”
Thankfully, Witness isn’t just thinking—they’re doing.
If you are using video for civil and human rights documentation, take advantage of the resources available through Witness.
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