You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s been Saddam, Saddam, Saddam, in recent weeks, but GV has covered other human rights videos that deserve a bit of limelight – so, in this regular new feature, I’m going to round up the best of those recent stories.

Something for WITNESS’s Amazon Wishlist [via Veronica]

First to Pawlina, host of a Ukrainian radio show in Vancouver, Canada, who blogs about human trafficking at The Natashas. After her post in late December commending Ukrainian pop star Ruslana for releasing a video condemning human trafficking, Pawlina praises another musician, Peter Gabriel, for founding WITNESS, but, under the title “Some human rights abuses harder to expose than others”, offers some advice:

It’s very commendable of rock stars to help expose human rights abuses around the world.

British rock legend Peter Gabriel has formd an organization called Witness that provides video equipment to human rights activists to record such abuses.

I suspect he may not be aware of the horrific abuses suffered by hundreds of thousands of young women and even children, at the hands of human traffickers pandering to men seeking instant, no-strings-attached sexual gratification.

In which case, someone should send him a copy of The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade.

Then again, no doubt it would be extremely difficult to film what goes on behind the closed doors and barred windows of brothels and “breaking grounds”, much less expose it to public view.

In fact WITNESS did produce a documentary about trafficking in 1997, Bought And Sold, but Pawlina’s right – it’s proving quite difficult to find footage from behind those “closed doors and barred windows” – so if you have seen, or even filmed footage of that kind, please email me (email address at the end of the article) to let me know.

Knocking on doors and making things happen [via Neha]

Opening doors and unbarring windows, India’s Drishti collective have set in motion some pretty impressive video magazines made by their seven Community Video Units. The magazines often make for uncomfortable viewing for local officials, as this post from Reflections in a Window Pane shows. One of the CVUs is hosted by Navsarjan in Gujarat. When one Dalit community in Saurashtra, northern Gujarat, complained that a water-processing plant designed to lower the levels of fluoride in their water had not been used for three years, they met official stonewalling. The Navsarjan CVU’s video magazine asked why, and after the magazine was screened to the whole community, including the relevant officials, the water-processing plant was turned back on.

Drishti works with Video Volunteers and you can see a presentation by Gavin White, of Video Volunteers here. I hope to feature some of Drishti’s video soon.

Do videos show Nepali police joining in ethnic riots? [also via Neha]

In neighbouring Nepal, youths from the Pahadi community clashed with people from the Madhesi community, and businesses and houses burned in the western Nepali city of Nepalgunj in late December. Paramendra Bhagat at Democracy for Nepal presents three video extracts of the aftermath, claiming that the clashes were in fact a “hate crime” by the Pahadis against the Madhesis. Now the Nepali Times is reporting that the local police were seen attacking Madhesis too. All this is leading some commentators to fear that, with the entry of the Maoists into politics, ethnic rivalries may enter Nepal’s politics.

Were the 2006 Fiji elections rigged? [via Preetam]

Fiji’s military, which took power in a coup d’etat in 2006, released a video that purports to show senior members of the former ruling party, the SDL, admitting vote-rigging and interfering with ballot boxes. FijiBuzz uploads the video, but meets sceptical responses from commenters on two counts: first, that the man who shot the video, Peter Foster, is said to be a conman who can’t be trusted, and second, commenters think that the video fits too neatly with the military’s need for some kind of evidence justifying the coup.

Forced evictions ‘rampant’ in Cambodia [also via Preetam]

Forced evictions in Cambodia are rampant, said the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in 2006. In the absence of citizen-filmed footage of evictions, blogger Mongkol linked to a TV documentary showing the extent of forced evictions in Cambodia.

To find out more, visit the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, the Asian Coalition on Housing Rights, and COHRE’s Cambodia page.

I’ll be featuring more stories on forced evictions soon, so if you have access to relevant footage from anywhere around the world, I’d be very interested to hear from you by email or through the comments box below.

The ethics of filming the poor [back to Veronica]

Finally, Minsztrel at Pestcentric takes issue with a cameraman filming poor Hungarians at a soup kitchen outside the District VII Mayor’s office in Budapest. A question for you: how are vloggers dealing with the issue of consent, and what guidelines do they need to follow?

Journalism seems like a precarious profession to practise in Mexico. It’s ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist.

The latest tragic example of this came on Friday 27th October, in the southern state of Oaxaca, with the shooting of Brad Will. Brad was in Oaxaca as a journalist for New York City Indymedia, trying to get stories out about the protests in Oaxaca (for up-to-date accounts and context of the crisis in Oaxaca, read my GV colleague David Sasaki’s latest post). While filming skirmishes between paramilitaries and protestors in Santa Lucia on Friday afternoon, Brad was shot in the abdomen and neck, and died from his injuries, prompting the CPJ to call on the government to investigate Will’s death. Now Indymedia has released the tape that was in Brad’s video camera when he was shot.

It’s a sixteen-minute video with English subtitles, and beware, the last minute (from 15’30) is very difficult to watch. Click here to launch the Quicktime video (there’s a YouTube version without subtitles here).

There’s more footage at Mexican opposition blog Hoy PG, which points to a piece of unidentified news footage of Brad Will shortly after he was shot – not for the faint-hearted.

It’s a moot point whether these are human rights videos per se, but Brad’s tape in particular ends so shockingly, and depicts with such brutal suddenness the risks run by those determined to bring human rights stories to light, that it demands to be seen. But as one of the blogs David Sasaki quotes had it, there’s a balance to be struck between outrage at the killing of Brad Will, and at the mounting number of local deaths and injuries.

Part of the reason that Brad was in Oaxaca was because there has been scant international attention paid to the growing crisis there. But while cases like Brad’s – involving attacks on journalists and human rights activists from information-rich societies – gain huge amounts of traction in global media, in this case bringing Oaxaca to the top of the news agenda, the far greater number of local journalists and human rights activists affected in similar ways rarely receive the same level of coverage.

Think back to Alive In Baghdad, which brought us the Iraqi Torture story a few weeks back, and which finds that its correspondents can receive harassment and intimidation, if not worse. One correspondent, Marwan, was recently kidnapped by a militia group, possibly the Mahdi Army. Iraq is an extreme example, but it’s by no means the only example.

At the end of the information chain, all over the world, there are people working to bring to light human rights abuses, oppression, torture, genocide. They are often working under difficult, extreme conditions, whether alone or in a group, undercover or in public, and often without a safety net. They might be journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, doctors, mothers. They often live in fear of repercussions, for themselves, or their families. Most of the time, it’s these people – the locals – who are threatened, attacked and imprisoned, rather than foreign correspondents or international human rights workers. Brad Will was working with these people to tell their stories, and suffered a tragically similar fate.

Anyone already doing or supporting this kind of work should take note, and prepare accordingly. The WITNESS manual Video For Change has a chapter on safety and security (PDF, 1.28 MB), an essential read for anyone going into similar situations. The Rory Peck Trust, mentioned in the chapter, offers support to “the families of freelance newsgatherers killed whilst on assignment [and] to freelancers who are unable to continue their work due to severe injury, disablement or imprisonment”, and works in Mexico, as well as South Asia and the Middle East. Feel free to add other useful resources via the comments box.

As for Oaxaca, if you’re interested in the background on the protests, in addition to David Sasaki’s latest post, you could do worse than read previous updates:

David Sasaki on the original teachers’ protest in June 2006 | Liza Sabater shows 8 videos from the June protests | October 10th: APPO says “Stay away from Oaxaca” | October 12th: More updates from Oaxaca-based bloggers | October 19th: More death in Oaxaca | October 27th: APPO locks down the city

If you’ve seen the guidelines for this site, you’ll know that there are types of footage that we wouldn’t post, and circumstances surrounding the shooting of particular videos that mean we wouldn’t even link to them. Today’s post is about one of those videos.

I was researching a possible post about child-soldiers, when I found a video on a video-sharing site, said to be an interview with a teenage former child-soldier. In the video, the youth makes a number of allegations against the rebel organisation that he claims abducted him, sexually abused him, and sent him out on military operations – allegations broadly consistent with research conducted in his country by respected international human rights organisations.

But unusually for a video carrying this kind of allegation, the youth involved is identified by name, and in the accompanying text, by location. Human rights organisations (and media) would almost always advise protecting the identity of a minor in such a situation (see pages 16 and 17 in this document, for example) – whether by pixellating or obscuring his/her face, by shooting the video so that their face cannot be seen, e.g from behind or in silhouette, or possibly disguising their voice or re-voicing the audio. The photograph below shows how easy it is to pixellate an image to conceal someone’s identity.

In the case of the video I had found, none of these protocols was followed. I wondered for quite a few days whether to post this video, which I felt brought out many important issues within a conflict where the recruitment of child-soldiers is common. It’s horrifying testimony (and by no means rare), and the youth’s story deserves to be heard – but the video raises a huge number of questions. Therefore I’ve decided against showing you the video itself.

The video is quite short, and in it the youth seems to be giving a prepared statement – there’s no one asking questions for clarification, as there was by contrast in the Alive In Baghdad video a couple of weeks ago. The text accompanying the video states that the army found the boy after he escaped from his abductors, so I have assumed that the army shot the video.

Did the army explain to him clearly and adequately what the video was for, and how it would be used? At no point in the video or in the accompanying text is it made clear whether the boy in question has given his consent to the use of this video online. Was he given a choice of whether to take part, or of when, where and how it would be filmed? He mentions his parents in the video – were they asked for their consent? If we assume that his alleged abduction and subsequent sexual abuse caused him trauma, what support and follow-up was offered to him? How informed can his consent be considered?

As video has become an increasingly accessible technology, it has become easier to use video as a weapon in the information war. In the recent conflict in Lebanon, for example, the Israeli army, Hizbollah and citizens in Lebanon and in Israel used video to collect evidence of alleged atrocities and human rights violations. Whichever organisations collect and release footage and testimonies in conflict situations, they need to be able to answer questions about the origin of testimonies and footage satisfactorily – otherwise they run the risk of seeming exploitative, and perhaps unreliable.

So who released the video I found, and why did they decide not to protect the youth’s identity?

I did a simple search for the youth’s name and easily found the site where the original video is hosted. It’s an official government site. I emailed the editor of the site to ask how they came by this video, and what guidelines they followed in uploading it. As yet I have not received a response to my questions, although I did get an acknowledgement of my email, with the following warning showing just how sensitive an issue this is, both for governments and other entities:

“If you are willing to undertake a research on Child Soldiering, let us say [this country] is the best place. But of course if you do so, you will surely get in to lot of troubles, including threats on your life.”

Troubles aside, it’s clear that in this particular case, the government concerned has clearly not followed the best-practice guidelines that should be employed by any organisation engaged in the welfare of former child-soldiers. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a group of organisations working to promote a ban on the recruitment of children under the age of 18 into the armed forces, and to support the demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of child-soldiers into their societies, offers links to international standards for this kind of work that should serve as a useful model.

I have written again to this government website outlining these concerns, and to the person who uploaded the video onto the video-sharing site, asking them to consider removing the video, until they can apply relevant guidelines to it, and I’ll report back on what I hear.

The editor also said that

“It is a pity that none of the former government could use the technology to reveal the truth of our country to the world.”

Whatever the truth of that country’s conflict, the government is accountable for the implementation of international human rights standards and international humanitarian law within their own borders – and on their own websites.

Governments contemplating the use of children’s testimony in similar situations, should ensure that they protect children and respect human rights norms on posting sensitive content of this nature. That way they can avoid accusations of exploitation and propaganda.

If you’re interested in reading more about children and armed conflict, here are a couple of excellent resources:

Choike has pulled together an array of reports, research, tools and articles on the issue. The Human Security Gateway pages on Children and Armed Conflict point to a huge range of reports. Page 113 in the Human Security Report covers child-soldiers. And the Watchlist’s Country Reports on the use of child-soldiers give useful background on countries where this is a particular problem.

Torture in Iraq, says the UN, is “out of control”, and “worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein”. So it was especially timely for Brian Conley at Alive In Baghdad to e-mail us to say that he had an interview with a man who claims to have been beaten and abused by Iraqi security forces in Ramadi:

Click on the image to play video

The man in the video, referred to as “Majed”, talks of being arrested without charge by members of the Iraqi National Guard – now known as the New Iraqi Army – on 13 July 2006. The abuses he alleges include arbitrary detention, persistent beating and kicking, and whipping with an electric cable. He shows the camera the physical scars of his ordeal.

There are some questions about this case that the video interview doesn’t answer: did Majed make a complaint to any official authorities? If he did complain, did the Iraqi Security Forces deny the allegations or agree to investigate them? If the allegations are true, and the perpetrators are identified, is there any prospect that they will be punished? What about the US officer whom Majed refers to?

Nonetheless the alleged maltreatment described in the interview should be enough to make us all sit up and take notice.

Majed’s testimony also gives an insight into the unpredictability and insecurity of life in Iraq, and particularly in Ramadi, which lies about an hour west of Baghdad and is reported to be one of the cities most beset by violence in post-Saddam Iraq. Brian Conley himself reported in June that large parts of Ramadi had become no-go areas. Later that month, the American military adopted a new tactic to try and take back control of the town. According to Majed, he was picked up by Iraqi soldiers just a couple of weeks later in what appears to have been part of a security “sweep”.

In the now-daily bulletins about their security situation, nothing is quite as simple as it seems for the residents of Iraq. Riverbend wrote earlier this year about a Ministry of Defence announcement on Iraqi TV requesting that “civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area”. Yet Majed alleges that in his case, the appearance of a US officer on the scene led merely to an order for the Iraqi soldiers to “continue” beating him up. Elsewhere there have been claims that state security units need to be purged of militias who have infiltrated their ranks. Depending on the city and region of the country, Iraqi police and security forces sometimes appear to use force beyond any bounds of accountability.

Building the capacity of the Iraqi military and police is a frequently stated priority of the Multi-National Coalition. So, with a gradual transition to local and provincial responsibility for security underway across the country, how accountable are the Iraqi Security Forces? The UN Report stated that:

“The inability of State institutions to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and to provide adequate protection to ordinary citizens […] risks polarizing Iraqi society to a previously unknown degree and result in a self-reinforcing pattern of sectarian confrontation.”

And when confrontation erupts, human rights violations like the ones alleged by Majed become part of a larger pattern of suffering and death. The UN Mission in Iraq estimates that over 6,500 civilians died violently during July and August, at the hands of either security forces, militias, terrorist attacks or organised crime syndicates. The bodies in the dilapidated Baghdad morgue give indications of an alarming degree of brutality, as they

“often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones — back, hands and legs — missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails.”

These ghastly injuries inflicted on the silent dead of Iraq’s war will be left to speak for themselves. But with reports of over 13,000 people detained at present in Iraq, how many more testimonies like Majed’s might eventually emerge? And what can be done to prevent the same kind of stories from becoming a hallmark of Iraq’s future?

Author info: this post was co-written by Gavin Simpson