Transcript for the Piece Audio version of The State We're In: Special on Technology and Human Rights
THE STATE WE?RE IN Section A
Length 12:30
Broadcast Date: 20 September 2008
**TSWI ID NEW TAG
This is TSWI, I?m JG and welcome to a special program looking at how technology can help promote human rights.
Here in the west, seemingly innocuous social networking sites like Facebook may be mainly used to connect old school friends and play movie quizzes. But in the Middle East, these sites are quickly becoming "virtual" platforms for very real and very repressed political causes.
Egypt has been under a continuous state of emergency since 1967. This means tight control of freedom of the press and gatherings of 5 or more people are illegal.
But on social networking sites like Facebook, there?s no limit. As a result, hundreds of Egyptians who share the same sympathies or political stripes can get together and talk on line, or even arrange protests. This is exactly what political activist Ahmed Maher did.
He started a Facebook group calling for a nationwide general strike to protest rising prices and government corruption. We called him up in Cairo and he says it worked.
DALET A- Maher 1 duurt: 1?59
FW: (Arabic) People were very frustrated?
LW: ?to speak with you.
As Ahmed Maher explained, Facebook is giving opposition movements the freedom to organize and meet in Egypt, albeit virtually.
Blogs are doing something similar by providing a platform for freedom of the press in Middle Eastern countries where there is normally total government control.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia blocks over 400,000 websites and the watchdog group Reporters without Borders calls it one of the world's "Internet enemies."
Despite this, Ahmed Al-Omran, a 24 year old student in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh still manages to moderate the popular English language blog Saudi Jeans where he does not write about denim trousers, but about social change and political reform.
I asked him why the government hasn?t shut him down?
DALET A ? Saudi Blogger duurt: 3:16
FW: One reason is because?
LW: ?Thanks for having me.
And if you?d like to read Saudi Jeans for yourself then we?ll link to it at our website: TSWI.org.
The Saudi government may tolerate Ahmed Al-Omran?s openly critical columns for the moment. But that may not last long.
Alexandra Sandels is an Internet analyst with the Beirut based Middle East media watchdog Mennasat in Lebanon. She says the Internet is making Middle Eastern governments nervous, and they?re cracking down.
DALET A - Alexandra Mannasat duurt: 4:00
FW: Intimidation or arrest?
LW: ?Thank you?
Let us know what you think about this story, or any of the stories on this programme, at our website ? t-s-w-i dot org.
A ? BUTTON with ID
Still to come on our technology special, can radio promote human rights and justice? We like to think so. And to prove it we found a radio show in the Democratic Republic of Congo that uses text messaging to answer listener questions about human rights and justice. Questions like?
DALET A-B Teaser 0'11"
Can the law punish a person who confessed when he was under a spell from a witch doctor? Well what is the answer to that question? I?m dying to know. [laughter]
The answer in a few moments. Stay with us.
Music Break
THE STATE WE?RE IN Section B
Length: 18:30
Broadcast Date: 20 September 2008
This is TSWI from RNWW, I?m JG and we?re talking technology in today?s show. About how technology is being used to create the potential for real change in the fight for human rights.
Earlier we heard how social networking sites and blogs are being used to circumvent press freedom restrictions in some of the MEs more autocratic regimes. Facebook is also at the center of a controversy currently brewing in Turkey.
Turkey may have a majority Muslim population, but it is a fiercely secular republic. A pro-Islamist government, the AK party, is currently in power and this has put secularists and Islamists at odds.
This past summer the country?s constitutional court ruled that the AK sought to overthrow the secular state and introduce Islamic rule, but, in contrast to earlier rulings, it didn?t close the party down.
It?s come to be called ?The Closure Case?, and it has divided Turkish society. And as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, nowhere is the debate more fierce, than online.
ACT TYPING
INSERT ENGLISH
Well this is my Facebook profile actually my first purpose was to reach friends I have not seen for a while. But like everyone I have received invitations to some groups. And I have accepted especially the groups against the current government, especially regarding the secular system.
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LINK 1
Melten Col is one of 1.5 million Face book users in Turkey. She is a young woman living a secular life in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. Col fears that her right to a life without religious pressure is being threatened by the government. But her generation grew up during military rule in the 1980s, when there was zero tolerance for civic society. Facebook is now helping people to overcome that legacy, she says.
INSERT2 ENGLISH
In democracy I believe civil society is a big need and they must be very active. But you know we don?t have this feeling of going and becoming a member of such groups. But people are now acting as individuals and creating such groups. And for you how useful is it. It is good to know that you are not alone.
ACT PROTEST
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But it is not just people who oppose the current pro-Islamic government who are using Facebook to make their voice heard.
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A recent demonstration in the heart of Istanbul in support of democracy and against attempts to close down the ruling AK party. It was organized by Young Civilians, a local human rights group. They used Facebook not only to organize the protest but also for many other activities. In fact, says Ceran Kener, one of founding members of Young Civilians, their movement was born on Facebook.
INSERT 3
Actually before we had an office we had an internet group, so I believe the internet and different tools of internet, they serve this young people in a very positive way, because we don?t have assets we don?t have capital. But we have a tool for free, and we can reach people through this tool. Some people know Young civilians but they were not interested in activities they just be a member of face book, then they started to participate in activities, so Face book is a very important tools for us.
LINK 4
But this Facebook revolution is not only confined to the city?s well-educated youth, says Berke Bas who teaches media studies at Istanbul?s Bilgi University. She says everyone is now getting connected. But she has her doubts about whether this development is actually healthy for Turkish democracy.
INSERT 4
With this transmission of information, maybe it will help Turkey to be a more democratic society, but there is also the danger that will create more division within society, because nobody wants to listen to the other. When you create your group your face book, when you refuse and you deny all the others , with other political point of views then we cannot talk about democratization but we can only witness a divided country taking shape even on the internet scene.
(POSSIBLE CUT ?OUT HERE)
LINK 5
But Kener doesn?t share such concerns. She sees Facebook and other social internet groups as a powerful tool to challenge the growing political apathy among Turkey?s youth.
INSERT 5
Political apathy among young people is much related how they perceive politics young people perceive politics as a job of old men. But I think internet is based on mutual relationship In face book people are using their initiatives , they are writing comments they can talk with people. You cannot write comments when the president is talking on the television. But you find a way to express yourself. We have a mail group and it is so vivid so many people are making comments about so many issues. These people have some ideas when they find a way to express it they do express it. (RETURN HERE)
LINK 6
Facebook, along with other social networking groups, is set to play a key role in Turkey?s attempts to creating a new constitution and a society based on democracy and human rights.
The social networking site - which brings people together in most other places ? is proving divisive in Turkey.
So far, the jury is still out about whether Facebook will empower people or add to the polarization of Turkish society.
Does Dorian sign off? If not,
Dorian Jones in Istanbul. If you like to learn more about Turkey?s Facebook activism, then just go to our website: TSWI.org.
DALET - BUTTON
This is TSWI, from RNWW. I?m JG.
We?re talking about how technology is being used to promote human rights. Now, the right to a security and a safe life is a basic human right, it?s in the UN Declaration of HR.
But in the northeastern Brazilian state Pernambuco, 10 people are murdered every day. This means Pernambuco has the highest murder rate in the country. The state capital, Recife?s homicide rate is higher than Iraq?s.
Last year, over 45-hundred people were murdered in Pernambuco. This year?s death toll is already over 3000. Despite the staggering figures, the homicides are largely unreported by the media and ignored by the general public.
That?s why four of Recife?s crime beat journalists took matters into their own hands and created the site: P-E body count. PE being the abbreviation for Pernambuco.
Eduardo Machado is one of P-E Body Counts founders. He told me why Pernambuco?s homicide rate is so high.
DALET ? PORTUGUESE 1
There is a serious problem here of violence. Our politicians are only now beginning to admit that we have a problem. And academics are only starting to study this phenomenon. So there?s no scientific answer as to why so many people are being killed. All we have are some clues. The police say most of the crime is linked to the drugs trade and gang warfare, but what we see on the streets is that many people decide to take justice into their own hands. So, for example, if there?s a quarrel between neighbours or a family dispute, someone will just go and kill the person who is bothering them. Most of the victims are young black men between 15 and 24 years of age. They?re poor people with little schooling and few opportunities, who are living in the favelas or shantytowns of the cities of Pernambuco.
To get the figures for the P-E Body count, the journalists make around 50 phone calls every day to police and military police stations, hospitals and forensic medical institutes. They update the body count at noon, and publish a list of the names of all the victims and their age. They?re also developing another site which uses red flags (on a map) to show where homicides take place.
DALET-PORTUGUESE 2
The aim is to make it clear that in the areas where the state is not present, crime is rampant. This link has already been proven: the less support a community receives, the higher the crime rate. So by showing that crime is concentrated in poor neighbourhoods, we are trying to underscore that it?s important to make social investments there.
There?s evidence that P-E Body Count is helping. The authorities have drawn up a plan to combat violence and Pernambuco?s murder rate has dropped 6%.
But there are still over 45 murders a year. Eduardo Machado believes it will take years to cut the death toll.
DALET-PORTUGUESE 3
The problem is so serious because it didn?t start yesterday. It has increased over the years because of growing social problems. There are huge social inequalities here. The middle class and our country?s elite are simply not interested in redistributing the state?s wealth which is why - in the short term at least ? it?s unlikely that things will change.
And there?s another problem. The families of most of the people killed have never even heard of the P-E Body Count because they?re simply too poor to access the internet. Eduardo Machado feels that poverty is the reason the victims were so anonymous in the first place.
DALET ? PORTUGUESE 4
What?s happening here in Pernambuco is social cleansing on a small scale. What do I mean by that? The people who are being murdered here are the poor. They?re prisoners, people living in the favelas and unemployed people. These people are considered human garbage. So what shocks me the most is exactly that, that our society has come to consider this normal, that these people should be killed. That's what shocks me. We want civil society to become outraged by this huge number of murders and for them to put pressure on the authorities to improve the situation.
That was P-E body count founder Eduardo Machado. And if you?d like to learn more about the site, we?ve linked it to our: tswi.org.
DALET ? RADIO PROGRAM
Radio might be an old technology compared to the Internet, but there are some parts of the world where radio is not only cutting edge, it?s effective a getting a message across. Case in point: The Democratic Republic of Congo.
The DRC has been at war for most of the past decade. The warring parties may have signed a peace agreement six months ago, but the fighting still goes on in the east of the country.
But there is one local radio programme trying to raise awareness about human rights, justice and reconciliation.
BRING PROGRAM UP
It?s called Interactive Radio for Justice and it works like this: the station goes around recording questions about various rights and laws from ordinary people and then puts the questions to the authorities or even representatives from the International Criminal Court who are in the area investigating human rights abuses.
They even get questions texted from mobile phones?not exactly the type of technology you?d associate with a country so hobbled by war that there?s almost no electricity.
Wanda Hall is the program?s director. Wanda, welcome to the show.
Hello.
So how does it work?
We have developed six listening groups: four in Bunia and two around the village of Kandroma where people meet up to listen to the programmes together and discuss their questions on justice. We try to send journalists to these meetings so that they can record questions from these groups on a regular basis for future programmes. But we aren't able to send someone to every meeting that happens. So when people want one of their questions to be addressed on the programme, they send us an SMS with the question and that allows us to organize ourselves to travel to the region and to record their questions. OK, so how do people then get the answers? We canalize the questions that we have recorded to figure out where are the authorities at the highest level possible to answer each question. We work on the principle that every question recorded gets an answer. So they get their answer on the air. Do they also get it via text messaging? No. The power of the programme is still the radio and getting these questions and getting this discussion on justice on air for everybody to hear because it's kind of like if it's on air then you have the entire population as witness to the authorities' answer and that gives legitimacy to the answer. But the SMS is important because we receive questions, sometimes from remote parts of Ituri. For example a pygmy community in a village called Biakatu sent us questions. So that motivated us to organise ourselves to go to this remote community and record their questions and get their answers and put them on air. So what did they ask? Questions we receive address local, national, international justice questions as well as human rights and civil liberty questions. For example? For example, must the victim of sexual violence provide a medical certificate to the prosecutor in order to make a complaint. Or must victims wait until the end of the trial to receive reparations from the ICC. The International Criminal Court is the first international tribunal to include victim participation and reparations in the process and this of course is very interesting to the people of Ituri and the more they learn about it, the more concrete questions they have. Can the law punish a person who confessed when he was under a spell from a witch doctor? Well, what is the answer to that question? I'm dying to know. Yes, someone is responsible for their confession if they're taken under oath. Even if they've had something done to them by a witch doctor? Right. Yes. Well how effective is the show at actually changing things? I have examples that people are listening and that the voices of the authorities are making a difference on the ground. For example, there was a problem in Bunia which is the capital city of the Ituri region because under Congolese law when the flag is raised, everyone must stop their activity. If you're driving a car, if you're on a bicycle, if you're walking down the street, you must stop what you're doing in respect to the flag being raised. Well, the police were using this law as an opportunity to take money from citizens for not stopping when the flag was nowhere to be seen. It was so far away from the flag that people didn't know it was being raised. So we went to the chief of police. We went to the prosecutor for Ituri and these authorities very explicitly explained the law over the radio: that you must be within visual distance of the flag when it's being raised to be stopped and the police cannot get money from you right away. They write a ticket and then you are responsible for going to the courthouse and paying a fine. So once this was announced on the radio people knew their rights and so they weren't giving the police money when they were being stopped and the police stopped abusing the law. Now why text messaging? The cell phone has been a true revolution in a place like Congo because it can function well without basic infrastructure, and text messaging is virtually free. You can send a text message for a couple of pennies, so people can afford it, even in a country like Congo where people don't make more than 30, 40, 50 dollars a month. So how about SMS radio shows in other war zones like Darfur or Somalia? Would your formula work over there? I think it's a technology that can be applied in many different regions. But to say that 21st century technology ? and I'm talking more about the internet and all the interactive projects that are very virtual in nature ? can work well in these places is a little bit of an exaggeration.
Wanda Hall of Interactive Radio for Justice, thank you very much for coming onto TSWI.
Thank you.
And if you?d like to learn more about the programme, which operates not only in the DRC but also in the neighbouring Central African Republic, check our website at www.tswi.org.
DALET BUTTON
Still to come in our special on technology and human rights, we meet the photographer who?s new book on Iraq shows the war through the eyes of Iraqis? cell phone pictures.
DALET B-C TEASER DUURT: 0?14?
We?re looking here at a mobile phone image. We are sitting inside a car because you still see the door of the car and a little piece of the mirror looking outside what appears to be garbage in the street and between that garbage there are three dead bodies.
Stay with us.
Music break
THE STATE WE?RE IN Section C
Length: 19:00
Broadcast Date: 20 September 2008
This is The State We?re In from RNWW. I?m Jonathan Groubert and it?s time for a look at what the world?s top human rights groups are working on this week. Eric Beauchemin joins me for an update. Hello Eric.
Hi Jonathan. Human Rights Watch says the European Union observer mission in Georgia ? which is due to move into areas near South Ossetia ? must be given both a mandate and adequate resources to protect civilians. The group says that its researchers have documented numerous attacks by Ossetians against civilians in villages in the area. According to Human Rights Watch, ?the so-called security zone is anything but safe. It?s a no-man?s land, and people there desperately need protection?.
In Senegal, 14 people have filed complaints accusing the former dictator of Chad, Hiss?ne Habr?, of crimes against humanity and torture. Habr? has lived in Senegal since he was deposed in 1990. There have been numerous attempts to bring the former dictator to justice. This past summer, Senegal completed a series of legal reforms removing the obstacles to Habr?s trial. One of the victims who filed the complaint said, ?this is our last hope. We have been fighting for 18 years to bring him to justice, and most of the survivors have already died.?
And finally, Amnesty International has urged world leaders to adopt what it calls a ?Golden Rule? on human rights. The rule is that governments must prevent arms transfers when there is a substantial risk that they are likely to be used for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. The appeal comes on the eve of a meeting of UN member states to consider an arms trade treaty.
That was Eric Beauchemin with this week?s HR news.
PP Dalet Button PP
Throughout this week?s special edition of TSWI, we?ve been looking at technology and human rights. And so, we bring you that bit of near ubiquitous technology that has come to mean so much to so many?
DALET ? SOUND OF CELL PHONE
The cell phone.
Year of war have left the Baghdad infrastructure in bad shape. There are broken roads and bridges, roadblocks and ongoing fighting. But the cell phone network works just fine, so consequently it?s the primary means of keeping in touch ? and reporting dangers to friends and family. And since most cell phones these days also have cameras, they?ve become a medium for documenting life in a conflict zone.
While doing a shoot of Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and Turkey, Dutch war photographer Geert van Kesteren discovered that they take pictures of absolutely everything with their phones.
One night I had a long, long interview with several young Iraqi doctors who fled the capital, who fled Fallujah, after being kidnapped, after being beaten, after friends being killed, after seeing executions, etc., etc. And one of these doctors showed me on his mobile phone an image, as he said, this is my best friend just before he died. And actually that photograph, that portrait of his friend, made on a mobile phone, said I think so much more than my own photographs of the living conditions of refugees could tell. And that picture is actually here in your book. So this was the image that they were showing and it shows actually a man with eyes that doesn't say anything any more, where there's no more life in his eyes actually. He has some wounds on his face and he looked really, really depressed. You see he's in a hospital bed. And he's got a big bandage around his neck. Yes with a tube in it, probably for breathing. He was working as a doctor and as his friend said, he was one of the most amazing guys. He was handsome, he was strong. He was a very smart doctor and he was the person to put Iraq back on track. While working in the hospital, the mujahedin and the American army, they fought out a battle outside of the hospital and one of the American bullets went through 4 stone walls, hit a ceiling, then came back in the thigh of this doctor and he had a huge wound in his thigh which they couldn't operate in the hospital in Fallujah. Doctors put this guy in a car, brings him to a specialist in Baghdad, and just as they arrive, a nurse is telling them I'm sorry the doctor cannot do the operation because he's just been kidnapped. Then finally they brought him on a plane back to Jordan from their own saving money where nobody could save this guy because they also had an image of the wound which was huge and unfortunately he died. So this man who were looking at in the picture died. This picture was taken one or two weeks before he died, indeed. And this image was made on a cell phone. And that for you was a kind of inspiration. Yes because one of my friends who unfortunately is also a refugee in Amman. I went to her and I said, well I've seen this image on a cell phone. Do you receive images like that from relatives and friends, and she said oh yes, many. We all get images from Iraq. And I start asking around and it appeared to be that the people who stay behind in Iraq make photographs on their mobile phones. They show their gardens, their dogs, their families. Sometimes the misery in the street and send them to those who fled the country abroad. So this is a kind of real citizen journalism and I found it much more interesting than my own photographs could tell, as I could not enter Iraq myself at that period. What struck you about those pictures? What struck me most about these pictures was this look behind the scenes in Iraq, what brings you really close to the people, where in newspapers, in magazines, you read about the figures, how many people are dying, how many American soldiers, etc., etc., and this was something beyond that. This was very, very personal. The first image I received was this big, fat guy with sunglasses in front of a red car and on the red car he made his own spoiler at the back of the car and this image could be taken anywhere in the world. You see birthdays. You see people swimming in a lake. You also see dead people on photographs but what you see actually is what is really going on in a country in war. People try despite everything to live, to continue living, to love each other and it made me realize actually not only people are killed in war, not only it's horrible but also children are made. Life goes on somehow. Now why did you decide to present these pictures in a book? Because I think they represent a very, very important time of history in Iraq. It's been the most violent years in Iraq: 2005-2007, where violence is absolutely at its peak, where independent media cannot work in Iraq so we take decisions or we think we think that we know things about Iraq without really knowing them. I think that was the most important thing that these images reflect a life that is going on there which we hardly know about. And were people willing to share their photos with you? Yes, surprisingly very much. I think it had to do with the whole idea and the whole concept because most people I spoke with, they said, well listen, it's so terrible what is happening in Iraq and I have the feeling that people don't like Iraqis. People don't know us and they don't like us because they don't know us. They don't know who we are. They can't see the human being, who I am, any more. I am a human being. So if you show these photographs in a book, in an exhibition, I think that would be good. And hopefully people will relate to that human being again because we are a well-educated people. We are normal people like you and me. So that was one of the main reasons why people were sending in or giving me permission to use their images. Well how many pictures did you end up with in the end and how did you get them? We ended up with a few thousand images. I get them very simple. It was sent to me by e-mail. From whom. I mean how did you manage to contact all these people and get them? It was mostly by meeting people actually. We also asked people by Facebook to submit images where we explained the project, what we were doing and there is a huge Iraqi community on the internet which we were able to reach. I had some people who were living as refugees themselves who had a huge knowledge about the internet who were on these Iraqi chat groups and they asked people to submit as well. So in the end it were the refugees themselves, the Iraqis themselves who were collecting as well with us these images. Now your book has hundreds of pictures of war and its effect. If you could pick just one photo of the conflict which really stands out for you, which one would that be? That would be, I think, the assassinations in the street that's being shown. There was a person who sent me images one day. He photographed from inside the car several streets in Baghdad where you saw people with their hands tied behind their backs, blindfolded, laying dead in the street. There are several of these images here. We're looking here at a mobile phone image. We are sitting inside a car because you still see the door of the car and a little piece of the mirror looking outside what appears to be garbage in the street and between that garbage there are three dead bodies. On the right, there's a guy with green trousers and a white shirt, his hands tied behind his back laying face down in the dirt and on the left there are two people black trousers and they have normal shirts on laying dead also in the street. I found these images very, very important because also Baghdad Calling consists of several interviews of Iraqis who fled and they are explaining why they fled and what is going on in their country as being mentioned often in the press as being sectarian killing. Actually it should be referred to as ethnic cleansing because that is what has been happening and in this period of time in Iraq where whole areas were ethnically cleansed, where either Christians were chased out by Moslems or Shiites were chased out by Sunnis or visa versa. This happens on a very, very large scale and this is one of the reasons why so many people were killed. And again you don't see many of these pictures in the press because again it was simply too dangerous to report, to go out and take these pictures. Yes. If I would have shown my face here, not even holding a camera, the local militia would have arrested me and probably kidnapped or killed me. Now apart from photos of war, you also include a number of photos of family parties. You see people enjoying themselves with friends. They're holding up drinks. Again which of that type of picture stands out most for you? There are a few images of that that I think really stands out but there's a superb image in there, I think. What you see is a family with Christmas hats. Yeah, here's the one. Indeed. You see a whole family ? moms, dads, sisters, brothers, kids ? and they're all wearing Santa Claus caps and it's the kind with the stars on the front with the light-emitting diodes and they're all sitting around smiling and there's a little Santa Claus in the background. So this is what you see in the image. We are looking at these images with Western eyes because what we don't see ? only if I tell you ? is that in the middle is sitting a Moslem, a veiled woman. This is the mother of the family. It appeared to be that this whole family is a Moslem family who celebrates Christmas. What most people don't know is that in the old days in Iraq, it was very, very normal that Shia, Sunni, Christians, they were all living together. They are married together. Right after the war, I photographed Christmas myself in Baghdad and there I photographed as well a Muslim family who were celebrating Christmas and I asked them why are you celebrating Christmas because you are Muslims, you are not supposed to do this. And they said, no, it's a very nice celebration which we've seen for decades at our neighbours so we celebrate it as well. Their Christian neighbours. Their Christian neighbours, yes. And for me this image represents the strength of people in war because those are well you can say the innocents probably. The people who don't want war, the civilians, they want to bring their children to school and this is the way they like to live. But imagine these people step as Moslems the same minute on the street with those hats on, what would happen to them. And again this is a cell phone. Yeah, that's an incredible phenomenon that there were so many cell phones sold in Iraq right after the war. I think a lot of reconstruction of Iraq failed but that part succeeded very, very much. So almost every Iraqi has a cell phone now and it's really hip and really trendy to have a camera on it. But the thing is that cell phones are also a dual-edged sword because on the one hand they really helped you make this book, they help people communicate with each other in Iraq, they help maintain relationships. But also in Iraq they can ring at any moment with terrible news. There was somebody who told me his uncle was kidnapped. The kidnappers called the family on the mobile phone because that's how ti works. They kidnap you. They find the number of your father or mother and they're going to give a call. Those kidnappers first made the call and said can you recharge the credit on the phone? It's completely insane. His phone? The phone of the young man who they kidnapped. Yes, who they kidnapped because they don't want to spend their own money on phoning the family. To make their ransom demand. To make their ransom demand. Two years ago, you paid ransom to get your son alive back. Today you pay ransom to be able to bury him. I'll tell you looking through the book, the picture which struck me the most. It was a picture of utter desolation. And that is a picture along the curb of a street of what is clearly a sun-bleached skeleton and what that says to me is not only is there here somebody who got killed but also a society too scared to even go and pick up this person and take them away and bury them. In other words, the standards of what we consider to be civilization come to a screeching halt in this skeleton on a city street road. Nothing beautiful about war, is there? I got it on my screen the first day and I said, oh my god, I knew the stories must be true people were telling me. But these and several other images were a kind of proof of that. I had a very cruel picture like that made by myself from Iraq which is in my other book and I asked one of the Iraqis, do you think people can look at an image like this because it's gruesome and he said well every Iraqi child can look at it because you've seen it for dozens of times for real. Probably that said it all. You've created something that seems to be a unique record of life in Iraq during this period. After compiling this record of life captured on telephone, what role would you say mobile phones play in documenting human rights and human life in Iraq? Abu Ghraib photographs were made on a mobile phone. The hanging of Saddam was seen on a mobile phone. I just explained how kidnappers, militia is using this mobile phone. I think it became an essential tool in modern warfare so to speak and on the one hand, we as professionals we have all these restrictions in doing our work but on the other hand the civilians themselves has taken over a big part of that role we play within democracy because that's how I look at journalism. It's a fundament within democracy. It tells stories. It explains stories. It lets us know what is wrong, what is right. And if we cant' go into Abu Ghraib because I'm one of these photographers who tried very, very hard to document what was going on in American prisons in Iraq but although I had a few times access to these prisons where really that kind of offences were perpetrated, I couldn't be there. Then suddenly people started to record it themselves. So I think it plays a very essential role in protecting human rights because it tells a truth and in that lies the difficulty as well because these are not professionals, so people can make images or make up images or fabricate images out of their own mind which doesn't always have to reflect for 100% the truth. So on the one hand, yes, I think it's a very important tool to protect human rights. And on the other hand, no, because it's also a very important tool to portray propaganda.
Dutch photographer Geert van Kesteren?s book is called Baghdad Calling. And if you?d like to see the photos that Geert and I talked about, we?ve created a great little gallery on our website tswi.org.
DALET BUTTON
Time now for your comments. My colleague Dave McGuire is here to read them for you. Hello Dave .
Hi Jonathan,
Last week on this programme, we looked at the right to a comfortable retirement, and spoke with two women for whom retirement is not one long holiday.
Anne Noonan from Canada heard the programme and bemoans that,
"In many developed countries people can spend their most productive working years toiling for a better civil society, work which relies upon government funded programs, programs without employee benefits ? this leaves dedicated souls at the end of their career nearly as destitute as those they have tried to help."
While Steve Middaugh of the US wrote:
"I don't plan on anything from my government in my retirement; my income will come entirely from what I save and invest now. Unfortunately too many people don't have the same approach, and expect their governments to support them and their irresponsibility toward saving and investing during their working lives."
Our talking point this week at tswi dot org deals with privacy and border crossings, after a few high profile cases of visitors being harassed by Dutch border police.
David Berridge of Montreal, Canada, writes:
"After 9/11, no country marked as a potential terrorist target can take any chances, and therefore are much more prepared to follow a better safe than sorry security policy. These are perilous times, and the best way to avoid unpleasant security measures is to be aware and understanding of the dangers."
Tell us what you think about our Talking Point question or anything you?ve heard on our show at, just like these people did, at our web site tswi.org.
And that?s it for today?s program except to ask, what?s the state we?re in this week?
DALET Final Montage duurt: 1:25
The State We?re In is produced by Eric Beauchemin and Claire Ginger Gorman.
Our webmasters are Ashleigh Elson and Floris Dogterom.
Dave McGuire is our Editor.
Michele Ernsting is our executive producer.
Our theme music was composed by Gary Shepard.
Jim Russel is our creative advisor.
I?m Jonathan Groubert. See you next week for more of the State We?re In.
