Information Society Watch

June 7, 2007, Govtech

The global human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has launched a project in 2003 using satellite cameras to monitor highly vulnerable villages in war-torn Darfur, Sudan. The project involves encouraging ordinary people worldwide to monitor 12 villages through the Internet and put the Sudanese Government on notice that these areas are being watched around the clock. Images of the villages are being constantly updated to ensure that potentially vulnerable areas, defined according to their proximity to important resources like water supplies, threats by militias or nearby attacks, are being mapped. While there are those who might argue that such convergences of human rights and technology do not practically help the cause of displaced communities, what it certainly does is that it helps put international pressure on the government to halt the genocide and also serves as hard evidence in courts of law to prosecute the guilty parties.

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