international human rights program

Real or fake? U of T law students work with Amnesty International to verify conflict zone videos

Romi Levine — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 18:55:55 +0000

Real or fake? U of T law students work with Amnesty International to verify conflict zone videos

Romi Levine Thu, 07/11/2019 - 14:55

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U of T students are working to verify footage from conflict zones such as Sudan (pictured), where there have been clashes between security forces and protesters (photo by Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Law

Global

international human rights program

In January, videos surfaced on social media that appeared to show paramilitary forces in Sudan using tear gas on protesters at a hospital in Khartoum. It was an incident that, if true, illustrated the growing aggression by the ruling military regime against protesters in the eastern African nation where a peaceful revolution turned to turmoil after long-time leader Omar al-Bashir was ousted.

Such videos can be powerful tools for activist groups and other advocacy organizations who want to shine a light on injustices taking place around the world. But in the age of social media and manipulated video, it becomes harder to confirm that the depicted events actually took place.

That’s why a global network of university students, including a group from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, are working with human rights organization Amnesty International to verify videos from conflict zones across the globe. Called the Digital Verification Corps, or DVC, the academic institutions involved are: U of T, the University of Hong Kong, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Cambridge, the University of Essex and the University of Pretoria.

In the case of the Sudan video, the U of T students authenticated the content after Arabic speakers were able to identify the nicknames of a number of Khartoum neighbourhoods mentioned in the footage, thus allowing them to zero in on the specific location where the video was shot.

“This kind of thing is really important because there's no textbook out there for how to do this,” says Amitpal Singh, a second-year law student at U of T. “In many ways, as we are doing this kind of work – verifying digital content – we are also writing the book so to speak for the first time.”

U of T's DVC working group pictured at the Hong Kong summit. (From left) George Ghabrial, Sara Bolourchian, Amitpal Singh, Milica Pavlovic and Aaqib Mahmood (photo by Alice Tse)

The DVC was created to ease the strain on Amnesty International as the volume of video footage coming in from different countries ballooned. The international group of student volunteers are trained on verification techniques, mostly using open-source software, in order to find clues to verify the accuracy of a video.

In June, participating students gathered in Hong Kong for an annual summit where they exchanged ideas, tips and tools on how to more effectively verify footage.

“Having our student researchers assist Amnesty is a real benefit that allows them greater capacity to do extensive investigations,” says Samer Muscati, director of the Faculty of Law’s International Human Rights program – the home base for U of T’s DVC team.

Singh, meanwhile, sees the DVC as a credibility-building project for advocacy work.

“It's trying to show evidence-based advocacy is the human rights work of the future,” he says.

U of T’s DVC team has also worked on verifying videos during the Syrian civil war as part of Amnesty’s Raqqa project – an initiative documenting the atrocities that took place in the Syrian city and Islamic State hub.

Students use open source tools like Google Earth’s satellite imagery to confirm the location of video footage. They also dig into the video metadata to see if there are any clues – such as a geotag or a creation date – that could provide information on where and when the video was filmed.

“Our attitude when we start is a skeptical one. There’s more and more credence once these pass through hoops,” says Singh.

As the volume of user-generated content rises online, so does the vulnerability of social media users who may have trouble distinguishing the real from the fake, says law student Milica Pavlovic.

“We're in a period of time where a lot of people still put a lot of trust into what they see in the media and what's floating around on the internet,” she says. “A lot of this content is being seen and there's no real credibility to say what's real and what's not unless there are people doing the verification work.”

With the rise of more sophisticated video manipulation technology – including “deepfakes,” which involve the use of artificial intelligence to fabricate real-looking footage of people – it’ll become more of a challenge for those tasked with authenticating video, says recent law graduate Calum Agnew.

“As the tools to produce deepfakes get better, there will also be a bit of an arms race between people interested in open source investigations and maintaining the truthfulness of the public discourse in terms of developing technologies to detect these things.”

Authenticating videos can a toll on students mentally and emotionally. The subject matter of the footage is often hard to watch – sometimes depicting violent acts from air strikes to murders.

“It’s certainly very tough. One of the excellent things about the summit was that one of the things we tried to exchange with each other was strategies on how to cope with doing this kind of thing,” says Singh.

He says students are encouraged, for example, to work at their own pace in order to mitigate the mental effects of being exposed to footage that’s hard to watch.

Though it’s a tough job, U of T students participating in the DVC say the chance to effect change makes it worthwhile.

“It's a great honour for us to know that what we're doing is actually making a difference, and it might even be making a legal difference one day if the material we identify prompts some institution or practitioner somewhere in the world to launch a legal challenge,” says Singh.

The DVC program also underscores the international reach of U of T’s Faculty of Law, he says.

“As a law student, we know U of T is a global law school and this is one of the things we can point to – to actually substantiate that and show that this law school has a global impact because we are part of a community that is in Africa, Asia and Europe.”

Muscati adds that the U of T students are also gaining valuable experience that will advance their careers.

“The DVC is an amazing opportunity for our students because it gives them cutting-edge tools that complement the more traditional research skills that we are teaching them in the classroom,” he says.

Pavlovic agrees.

“It pulls you into a different world and shows you a new perspective of where your law degree can be used, and what kinds of opportunities there are outside of a more conventional path,” she says.

'And I Live On': U of T law students, researchers mark 25 years since Rwanda genocide with stories of resilience

Romi Levine — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:48:54 +0000

'And I Live On': U of T law students, researchers mark 25 years since Rwanda genocide with stories of resilience

Romi Levine Fri, 03/29/2019 - 12:48

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Mary Louise, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, is pictured in 2018 (photo by Samer Muscati)

Topic

international human rights program

U of T Scarborough

On the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a group of ��߲ݴ�ý faculty, researchers and students is looking to shift the narrative away from the atrocities that took place and instead focus on survivors’ stories of resilience and strength.

For Samer Muscati, director of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) in the Faculty of Law, sharing these stories is deeply personal. Ten years ago, Muscati traveled to Rwanda with a group of researchers to interview and photograph genocide survivors who had been victims of sexual violence.

“I left shaken,” says Muscati. “It was the start of my career documenting international crimes and the stories we heard there are still probably the worst I've heard in my career. It's hard not to see that and hear that and not be moved and changed by it.”

The Hutu-orchestrated genocide, which took place over 100 days in 1994, involved the slaughter of over 800,000 people, mostly from the minority Tutsi group. During that time, the perpetrators used rape, and sexual violence more broadly, as a tool to achieve power and control.

Based on that first visit to Rwanda, Muscati and his colleagues wrote a book called The Men Who Killed Me, which included the testimonies of 17 survivors.

Last year, Muscati returned to Rwanda along with Yolanda Song, an IHRP research associate, and India Annamanthadoo, a second-year law student, to work on a sequel to the 2009 book.

And I Live On: Enduring Stories of Rwanda’s Survivors will be published this year and includes accounts by some of the same survivors 10 years later. The book is a collaborative project with IMPACT, a Dutch organization that seeks to prevent and address sexual violence in conflict.

On April 1, Hart House will host a book launch for And I Live On, as well as an exhibition of photographs by Muscati and audio from the recent trip to Rwanda that was curated by Sarah Milroy, chief curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The exhibit will continue into May as part of the Contact Photography Festival and will also be shown at U of T Scarborough in the Instructional Centre's atrium and the Doris McCarthy Gallery vitrines.

Muscati photographed Rwandan survivor Adela in 2008 (photo by Samer Muscati)

Annamanthadoo and fellow law student Mehak Kawatra joined the project as part of a clinic run by IHRP. While Annamanthadoo was on the ground in Rwanda, Kawatra provided background research, interview preparation and transcribed the audio recordings. She also contributed to the book, writing about sexual violence from a sociological and historical lens.

In Rwanda, Song, Annamanthadoo and Muscati traveled around the country where they were warmly welcomed by survivors.

“Because they’ve lost so many members of their families in the genocide, they find family and a sense of belonging in each other. I was really surprised at how quickly I became part of that family too,” says Annamanthadoo.

In one case, the group traveled to visit a survivor named Faustin who lives in a rural area of southern Rwanda.

“He took us for a walk around his village and the whole village came out to see us because they don’t have many visitors, especially from outside Rwanda,” says Annamanthadoo.

The man also took them on a treacherous hike so he could show them the cassava fields he cultivated with help from sponsors.

“It was an amazing experience – just to see him so empowered and him so proud of something he had done,” she says.

Muscati took a photo of Faustin (right) on his most recent trip to Rwanda (photo by Samer Muscati)

On this trip, Muscati got to see how survivors’ lives have changed over the past decade. For the most part, he says he noticed a vast improvement in their quality of life due to the local and international services and support they have received.

“When you’re dealing with these types of issues, it’s never a complete turnaround. You’re still dealing with the scars and the stains of the genocide,” he says. “But to see where they are now compared to where they were 10 years ago, it’s really uplifting, and it’s uplifting for me to see that hope can be restored in a way that I didn’t think was imaginable.”

Many of the survivors now have homes and small businesses, and while most of them have HIV, they are receiving treatment from the government, Muscati says.

“The fact that we’re focusing on the resilience gave us a new window from an advocacy perspective because we are able to say to the international community, ‘Yes, it is important to have criminal accountability, yes, it’s important to recognize that these crimes are happening, but that’s not where our responsibility ends,’” says Muscati. “We have to try and make people whole again through these services.”

Read reflections on the project from law students Kawatra and Annamanthadoo

Song says when speaking with survivors, many said it meant a lot to them that they were able to tell their stories.

“I’m really glad to be part of something that pays tribute to their recovery and strength,” she says.

“It’s not something that many of them can freely talk about within their own communities because of the stigma attached, but they have been really appreciative of the level of support they get from the international community, which isn’t something I necessarily expected.”

Working on And I Live On provided Kawatra and Annamanthadoo with a unique experience that’s not often afforded to law students.

“So often in the legal profession, the skills we prioritize are drafting and legal research, which are obviously quite important. But in order to be an effective human rights advocate or otherwise, having the human skills, having that humility and having that ability to see things from other people’s perspective is critical,” says Muscati.

Annamanthadoo says the opportunity to work on a project like this provides meaning beyond the classroom.

“It really shapes who you are and it makes you thankful for a lot of things, but it also makes you realize how strong human beings are and how much resilience is possible. That’s quite inspiring as a student and just as a person.”

Gearing up for Monday’s exhibition, Kawatra hopes people come out to learn, reflect and challenge their understanding of what life is like for survivors in Rwanda.

“The exhibit is not meant to tell you how to feel – it’s meant for you to come and take advantage of the photos, the audio, and the music,” she says. “It’s going to be a really powerful space.”

More than 200 Canadian children housed in Toronto immigration detention facility, says new U of T report

ullahnor — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 17:30:11 +0000

More than 200 Canadian children housed in Toronto immigration detention facility, says new U of T report

ullahnor Thu, 02/23/2017 - 12:30

Topic

City & Culture

Law

Human Rights

international human rights program

Children

Detention

Canada has housed more than two hundred Canadian children in detention since 2011 in Toronto’s Immigration Holding Centre, alongside hundreds of formally detained non-Canadian children, says a report released today by the ��߲ݴ�ý’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP).

The report, Invisible Citizens: Canadian Children in Immigration Detention, includes six case studies of Canadian children who were housed in detention or separated from their detained parents in Toronto and Laval, Que. One of the children housed in detention was four months old when officials detained his mother.

The report recommends that Canada urgently implement alternatives to the detention of children, rather than confining them in immigration detention facilities or separating them from their detained parents.

“It is important for Canadians to be aware of this report,” said U of T Law Professor Audrey Macklin, director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies and chair in human rights law. “Too often, we are complacent about what the state does to non-citizens. Learning that the same hardship and harms of detention are inflicted on citizen and non-citizen children alike compels us to address why we think it's OK to do this to any child.”

The IHRP interviewed nine detained and formerly detained mothers of Canadian children from the Middle East, West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. The mothers described the arbitrary and rigid rules of the detention facilities in Toronto and Laval, and how the conditions eroded their capacity to effectively protect and care for their children.

“Canadians should be aware about human rights violations that are happening at home because this is the place that they can change things and make a difference,” said Samer Muscati, director of IHRP. “It's Canadians' responsibility to ensure that their government is accountable and not violating the most basic human rights, particularly of those who are some of the most vulnerable members of our society. These violations are particularly out of step with Canada's renewed efforts to become a global leader as a multicultural safe haven for refugees and migrants.”

According to figures recently obtained by the IHRP through access to information requests, an average of at least 48 Canadian children were housed in detention each year between 2011 and 2015 in Toronto alone.

New figures released by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to the IHRP in February 2017 indicate a significant decrease over the past year, as CBSA has taken some important initial steps to address long-standing problems. However, the IHRP is concerned that the frequency of family separation has not seen a similar reduction, and that the best interests of children do not receive adequate attention from immigration authorities.

The 60-page report is a follow-up to the IHRP’s September 2016 report on non-Canadian children in immigration detention, No Life for a Child: A Roadmap to End Immigration Detention of Children and Family Separation.

The new report reiterates that families in detention should be released outright or given access to community-based alternatives to detention, such as reporting obligations, financial deposits and guarantors.

“Canadian children are invisible in Canada’s immigration detention system,” said Muscati. “While all detention of children is horrible, these children are particularly vulnerable because they lack important legal safeguards, including their own detention review hearings.”

He hopes that ultimately there will be a change in Canada's laws and policies to make sure that international standards are applied on immigration issues. Other countries such as Sweden and Belgium are using alternatives to detention effectively, Muscati said.

“Canada needs to do all that it can to implement alternatives to detention so that children aren't locked up and traumatized,” he said.

Invisible Citizens is based on interviews conducted since November 2016 with lawyers, social workers, refugee advocates, mental health experts, as well as detained and formerly detained mothers. The report includes six case studies of Canadian children who were housed in detention or separated from their detained parents in Toronto and Laval. Without exception, the mothers expressed anguish about the detrimental consequences of the experience on their children’s physical and mental health.

The report profiles a four month old whose mother was detained at the Toronto detention facility. The mother was detained because CBSA suspected that she was a flight risk, and the baby accompanied her as a “guest” of the facility.

According to the mother, she constantly felt pressured by CBSA to part with her infant son. “But I’m his mom, I’m his caregiver, he’s breastfeeding, how can he leave?” she said. After three months in detention, the mother was diagnosed with Major Depressive Episode and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “I think they robbed a lot from me and my baby.”

The report builds upon years of advocacy by Canada-based refugee and child rights groups that have called on the government to ensure that children’s best interests are a primary consideration in decisions that affect them. International bodies have also repeatedly criticized Canada for its immigration detention practices.

The report welcomes recent initiatives by Canada’s federal government and CBSA, which have indicated a strong willingness to reform the immigration detention regime, with a particular view to protecting children and addressing mental health issues. The government has also expressed its intention to engage extensively with non-governmental organizations and other civil society stakeholders in the process of revising relevant policy and designing new programs.

Invisible Citizens reaffirms the 11 recommendations from the September 2016 report, which aim to ensure that Canada complies with its international human rights obligations. The report also builds upon the recommendations of the IHRP’s 2015 report, We Have No Rights: Arbitrary imprisonment and cruel treatment of migrants with mental health issues in Canada. Given the existing discretion under the law, authorities can implement these recommendations in practice even before legislative and regulatory changes are instituted, human rights experts said.

“The Canadian government and CBSA continue to take serious steps that have produced some initial progress,” said Hanna Gros, IHRP senior researcher and author of the report. “But it’s important that they entrench these initial advances into law and practice so that Canada lives up to its reputation as a multicultural safe haven for refugees and migrants.”

“Ottawa needs to move quickly”: U of T report calls to end immigration detention of children

vzaretski — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:28:23 +0000

“Ottawa needs to move quickly”: U of T report calls to end immigration detention of children

vzaretski Thu, 09/22/2016 - 13:28

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Illustration by Justin Renteria

Veronica Zaretski

Author legacy

Veronica Zaretski

Topic

international human rights program

IHRP

child detention

Since 2010, hundreds of immigrant children in Canada have suffered from trauma and mental health illness while housed in immigration detention centres, say researchers from the international human rights program (IHRP) at U of T’s Faculty of Law.

“The immigration detention of children does nothing to increase public safety, but has an immensely detrimental and lasting impact on an already vulnerable population,” says Samer Muscati, director of the IHRP. “Instead of locking children up or separating them from their detained parents, these children need meaningful protection in community-based alternatives to detention.”

The “No Life for a Child” report, released today by the IHRP researchers, says that Canada is violating its international legal obligations by separating children from their parents and placing them in immigration detention facilities, which the report says can resemble medium-security prisons.

The report is grabbing headlines here in Toronto and around the world.

Read the Guardian story

Read the Toronto Star story

According to figures obtained by the IHRP through access to information requests, an average of 242 children were detained each year between 2010 and 2014. That number is an underestimate and does not account for all children living with their parents in detention as “guests.”

“It’s a very disempowering environment,” says Hanna Gros, a recent graduate from U of T's Faculty of Law, IHRP researcher and co-author of the report. “They are deprived of the environment and education that they need to develop normally,” she says. “Their imagination is confined to the walls of the prison.”

Rachel Kronick, a psychiatrist at Jewish General Hospital in the division of child psychiatry at McGill University, visited immigration holding centres as a researcher. She says that the children and parents that she spoke to felt that the experience of being held in these immigration holding centres was one of powerlessness, humiliation and uncertainty. She observed significant mental health problems in both parents and children.

“Currently, there are no mental health supports available for detainees, aside from one-off psychiatric assessments,” she says. “But more important to underline is that while mental health supports would be helpful, it is the detention itself which is the source of harm.”

Kronick says that providing counselling is laudable, but is not enough. “Children and parents need to be protected from the harms of detention itself,” she says.

Detained children include refugee claimants from Syria and other war-torn regions, as well as some children who have Canadian citizenship, say researchers.

The researchers interviewed a child who they named Michel (his real name was not used to protect his identity) who spent his first 28 months living in a Toronto detention facility.

Michel’s mother was detained when she was two-months pregnant with him. Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) suspected that she was a flight risk, the IHRP researchers say. But after giving birth to Michel (who is a Canadian citizen born in Canada), she and her son were detained for nearly three years before their deportation in late 2015.

Gros says Michel’s first words were “shift change,” words he often heard the guards at the detention facility say. She says detained children would be searched by guards every time they returned to the facility after spending time outside.

“Michel knew the routine and automatically put his hands up every time,” she says. “He didn’t even realize that it was not right for a little boy to be searched by a guard every time he came back from the playground.”

“When people are deprived of their liberty, it’s so disempowering,” Gros says. “These episodes are highly traumatic for children when they’re detained for 48 hours, let alone for months or years.”

The researchers hope that the federal government’s and CBSA’s recent willingness to reform the immigration detention regime will prevent other stories like Michel’s.

The government and CBSA are showing a focus on protecting children and addressing mental health issues, according to the report, which also notes that the government has expressed an intention to engage extensively with non-governmental organizations in the process of revising policy and programs.

“After years of silence and inaction, the Canadian government and CBSA are taking serious steps that will hopefully bring us closer to ending child detention and family separation,” says Gros. “But Ottawa needs to move quickly and deliberately to end the needless suffering of children and their parents.”

“It is the fact of detention, not the condition of detention, that is the ultimate problem,” she says. “Investing a lot of money to improve facilities is not going to improve the situation. We need to address the root of the problem – detention itself.”

Gros says that CBSA cases are complex and diverse. “There isn’t a binary solution of either release or detention to address these cases,” she says. “But there are a wide range of alternatives to detention that still allow children and families to live in communities where their fundamental human rights are not deprived,” she says. Gros also notes that less than two per cent of cases involving children are a risk of danger to the public.

Yolanda Song, a third-year student completing her J.D. degree at the Faculty of Law who co-authored the report, says that officials can take steps to address the problem even before legislative changes are made. “CBSA officers and authorities need to focus on the best interest of the child when they make the decision to arrest, detain or release someone.”

The 70-page report builds on the recommendations of the IHRP’s 2015 report, “We Have No Rights,” and makes 11 recommendations to ensure that Canada complies with its international human rights obligations.

It concludes that children and families with children should be released from detention or accommodated in community-based alternatives to detention. These include electronic monitoring, reporting obligations, financial deposits and guarantors.

“Canada should be aligned with international requirements that place the best interest of children as the primary consideration in all state action that concern children,” Gros says. “Currently the system falls short for children who are de facto detained, who are invisible in the system.”