Global Voices » Bernardo Parrella

Robert F. Kennedy Award Will Recognize Social Media Journalism

Bernardo Parrella — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:01:03 +0000

One of the foremost international human rights organizations, the Robert F. Kennedy Center, is calling for nominations to a new Journalism Award on International Photography and International Social Media hosted by their European Office in Florence, Italy. The award will recognize the achievements of professionals and students who investigate human rights issues and advocate for change.

The journalism award is a first step of a long-term Smart Dissident Project by the RFK Center, aiming at providing digital activists from countries in the Middle East and North Africa with a physical working space (the former prison complex Le Murate in Florence, now beautifully restored) and an opportunity to stand up for freedom of expression and for the defense of human rights. The winners in the professional categories will win two weeks stay at Le Murate complex.

Previous award winners have been given a bust of Robert F. Kennedy, a civil rights activist and U.S. politician who was shot dead in 1968, only five years after the death of his brother President John F. Kennedy.

As part of the same project the Center will offer a course on “Social Media and Human Rights: Can Smart Dissidents Create Change?” planned for 18-19 June, 2012 (with participation from Global Voices), followed by the Journalism Award ceremony.

Nomination entries should describe the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and critical analysis of relevant public policies, programs, attitudes, and private endeavors.

Submission deadline is May 15, 2012 (click here to download an entry form).

Updates from the RFK European Office are on Twitter:

@RFKennedyEurope: RFKennedy Journalism award 2012 on SM and human rights is open to blogs: http://bit.ly/AwardEntryForm - http://bit.ly/JournalismAward #egypt #syria

The Robert F. Kennedy Center present awards every year for both Human Rights and Journalism. In September 2011, the winner of the Human Rights Award was Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella organisation that protects LGBTI people in the country.

Egypt: One year after the revolution, 10% of its Social Media Documentation is already gone

Bernardo Parrella — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:45:53 +0000

One year after the Egyptian revolution, 10% of its Social Media Documentation is already gone. An article on US magazine The Atlantic explains how this is happening, quoting a study conducted by a phD student in computer science and Web preservation at Old Dominion University. “Twitter gives us a new version of ‘the first rough draft of history.' But tweets are fragile things.”

Egypt: revolt's anniversary at Tahrir

Bernardo Parrella — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:55:55 +0000

Egyptian Twitter-sphere reports that jailed blogger #Maikel Nabil has just been released, while people are gathering for tomorrow's big rally at #Tahrir to celebrate the revolt's first anniversary: “feels chaotic and it's starting to rain” (#25jan).

ActionAid: halve world hunger by 2015

Bernardo Parrella — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:29:10 +0000

“Let's fight climate change & hunger. Together” is a new video released by ActionAid & produced by the LatteCreative team, to support the world food crisis campaign and keep the ‘pressure on governments to deliver on their promise to halve world hunger by 2015′.

Italy: Huge celebrations for Berlusconi's resignation

Bernardo Parrella — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:50:59 +0000

Millions of Italians (worldwide) are celebrating an historic moment: the official resignation of PM Silvio Berlusconi, now on his way to the Presidential Palace. Huge celebrations are also being planned online, with live video streaming from downtown Rome, Facebook pages, YouTube videos, on-going tweets and so on.

Italy: “Wiretapping Bill” could drastically limit freedom of information

Bernardo Parrella — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:47:04 +0000

The Italian Parliament is about to vote on a very stringent “wiretapping Bill” [it] aimed at drastically limiting judicial investigations and journalism inquiries, thus blocking free speech about new scandals exposing top-level politicians, as many of such cases keep emerging. After a recent “strike” by Wikipedia Italy [it] and a pouring of protests, a provision requesting all websites and blogs to immediately rectify any content that anybody deems “detrimental to his/her own image”, has been removed.

CEE Bankwatch Network campaign against EBRD practices

Bernardo Parrella — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:03:35 +0000

The CEE Bankwatch Network, an NGO monitoring activities of international financial institutions, has just released a video sharply criticizing the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's 20th anniversary of activities in former Soviet Bloc countries, and its intentions to extend to north Africa. “The EBRD has in fact a poor track record of keeping up with its mission to protect human rights and the environment and promote justice.” The Network campaign requests the EBRD to promote “environmentally-sustainable, socially-just, renewable energy-based societies rather than just market economies.”

Haiti: update on unrest after elections

Bernardo Parrella — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:04:36 +0000

While back in Haiti to finish shooting a Web documentary project on the unheard voices of reconstruction, web-reporter Giordano Cossu provides a personal account on the on-going unrest after the controversial elections: “Much of this is in the hands of the Electoral Committee now. The population has already decided what they need, after one year under tarps, defenseless against storms and cholera: no more of the same.”

A journey through the unheard voices of Haiti’s reconstruction

Bernardo Parrella — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:53:16 +0000

Giordano Cossu from Italy and Benoit Cassegrain from France are two web-reporters managing Solidar'IT in Haiti, a web project created in the footsteps of the Paris Crisis Camp aimed at using the Internet and other technologies to help Haitians affected by last January's earthquake.

As an independent, multimedia non-profit project, Solidar'IT in Haiti is a journey through the unheard voices of Haiti’s reconstruction, documenting the current post-earthquake situation by giving exposure to local citizens mostly excluded from the reconstruction process and still living in an emergency state.

In an interview via Skype, Giordano Cossu explains that he and Cassegrain lived in Haiti for about two months last summer, talking with people and shooting videos for their documentary:

“There is a lot of frustration on the ground, not only by those still living in tents (often filled with holes) in camps, but also on the part of volunteers and organizations trying to offer help and provide solutions. Our plan is to give visibility to these voices, to avoid that information from and about Haiti [which] is being provided only by the NGOs on the ground with their own agendas to pursue, as is the case today 95% of the time.”

Refugee camp in Haiti (photo by SolidarIT in Haiti, under CC)

While the material gathered in Haiti will be finalized in a full web-documentary by year end, the current multimedia website hosts a variety of content in English and French:

Our multimedia blog is a way to expose our work-in-progress and enable people to directly access the most important testimonies we collected so far.

We decided to provide only short summaries online, leaving unfiltered and strong content directly in video and audio footage. Only by listening and watching these images can people actually understand the reality in Haiti — at least much deeper than just by reading the news!

As for the web-documentary format, it has only been around for about two years and provides very creative opportunities for viewers to arrange - in their own way - the various videos available.

The current living conditions in most tent camps still have few humane aspects, and the situation is especially challenging for the more vulnerable, such as women, children, and sick people.

Even before the earthquake, violence against women was already a problem, but after the earthquake it just blew up, despite local institutions trying to minimize it: in most camps at night there is no electricity and often there are only shared bathrooms for both men and women, thus creating a dangerous situation and heightening the feeling of frustration and insecurity.

With images and voices, Solidar'IT in Haiti explains how local women's organizations are dealing with these problems:

In the so-called “box of grief“, women put anonymous, handwritten letters telling their stories of violence and abuse: from being denied food to being raped by their relatives. Once a week that box is opened and those letters read in a public ceremony, thus creating hard but necessary moments of revelation and acting as communal therapy — and also increasing women's awareness about their own rights.

Box of grief (photo by Solidar'IT in Haiti, under CC)

Marie Sofonie is 25 years old and determined to break the silence about these abuses. She got involved in the AYITI SMS SOS project, which allows victims or witnesses of abuses to send an SMS text-message to a free number (3803 0303). Messages are then mapped geographically and classified based on the type of crime or help request, location and so on - by using the crowd-sourcing platform Ushahidi and the Frontline SMS service. The AYITI SMS SOS initiative is being supported by Survivors Connect, an organization closely related to Fondation Espoir, as well as by other groups of local women.

Marie Sofonie is in charge of reading and indexing those text-messages (already well over a thousand) and also contributes to the Solidar'IT blog: that's how her voice is becoming global.

Ralph is a young Haitian journalist hosting “A camp per day”, a 20-minute feature within a radio program called ENDK (“Enfomasyon nou dwe konnen”, meaning “Useful News”), produced by the NGO news organization Internews. He visits a different camp each day, and talks to the people to understand where the major problems are. His reports represent a direct line for the displaced people living in the camps to express their feelings and needs, and receive news about the other camps. ENDK is then broadcast daily by a network of 35 radio stations in Haiti. Ralph's story is another voice gathered and relaunched worldwide by the Solidar'IT in Haiti documentary.

The project website includes many other stories, including one about Radio Boukman, the community radio of Citè Soleil, a dangerous neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince, which also manages a hurricane prevention program without any international support. And there is also the The Koute Ayiti (Listen to Haiti) caravan, created to travel to the different provinces affected by the earthquake and to spread health and other vital information information to support reconstruction.

Radio Boukman, the voice of the voiceless in Cité Soleil, Haiti from Web-Reporter on Vimeo.

Today more than 1,5 million people still live in tents, the reconstruction process has barely started, and almost nobody covers Haiti anymore. In the streets and refugee camps there are already many malnourished children, easily identified by their orange hair. The United States promised more than a billion dollars in help, but that money has never been released, nor has it reached Haiti thus far.

Until last August, the only help that actually materialized were goods from Norway, Estonia, Australia and Brazil. Today, many people can live in a tent only because they could afford to buy one.

Most Haitians feel excluded by the same NGOs that are managing the refugee camps, with scarce information provided to them; an 18-24 month waiting period for a final home transfer is a long time in a hurricane-infested area. And while the government remains largely absent, civil society is trying to step in. One example is the 50 refugee camps (from a total of about 460 camps in the Port-au-Prince area alone) that are entirely managed by the independent youth organization FNJD, by sharing the little resources available.

The second part of the web-documentary is scheduled for this November, when Giordano Cossu and Benoit Cassegrain will again travel to Haiti to delve deeper into the reconstruction process, producing interviews and footage with and about local citizens.

To find out more about the Solidar'IT in Haiti project, you can visit their website/blog, follow their Facebook page or Twitter account. For direct donations, people can use Ulule, a crowd-funding platform.

New video from the Global Poverty Project

Bernardo Parrella — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:34:21 +0000

The educational and campaigning organisation Global Poverty Project has released a two-minute video that depicts how each of us, not world leaders, can actually end extreme poverty within a generation.

Italy: Social Media Week in Milan and Worldwide

Bernardo Parrella — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:30:33 +0000

This story was originally published on Global Voices in Italian on September 18, 2010

Social Media Week is an eclectic, multi-city, global event (Sept 20-24) aimed at connecting people, content, and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Last February edition attracted more than 7,500 attendees across 200 events in New York, Berlin, London, San Francisco, São Paulo and Toronto, while this week many simultaneous events are scheduled in Los Angeles, Bogotà, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Milan [it]. Social Media Week first took place in February 2009 in New York with over 2,500 people attending across forty different events.

Over 90 free events are planned in Milan [it] alone, managed by more than 250 people including bloggers, entrepreneurs and experts. A large kick-off event is scheduled for Monday September 20 at Milan University focused on the City 2.0 [it] about how technology, and social media in particular, can help support sustainable development in the cities of tomorrow. According to some estimates, more than 70% of world population will reside in an urban environment by 2050.

The whole machinery for Social Media Week runs through a variety of online media and venues, from the main website and Twitter account to a Facebook page and YouTube channel. Each city also manages its own website and social media. Here is a promotional video projected in Piazza Duomo in downtown Milan:

Along with many discussions and presentations related to entertainment, new gadgets and platforms, fashion, entrepreneurship, and so on, the Milan program will address issues related to the non-profit world, new media and citizen media. For instance, there will be presentations from Italy-based projects such as Socialidarity 2.0 (social & non-profit news) and Eticmedia (a web-TV based on Corporate Social Responsability), while a local team will offer ongoing internet workshops for the elderly.

In the afternoon of Wednesday September 22 [it], the mediateca Santa Teresa will host a series of panels on user-generated content, particularly covering the current blog evolution and the rampant success of Twitter and Facebook for distributing information. Also addressed will be the new relationship between traditional media and the growing trend of relying mostly or only on online sources. In other words, how are social media affecting the news-gathering landscape and the information industry? Could citizen media play an even larger role in defining such environments in the future? A round-table discussion will include Global Voices in Italian [it], represented by Eleonora Pantò.

In cities such as Buenos Aires and especially Mexico City the local participants will also address matters pertaining to education, such as an all-day event called Educación 2.0 [es], focusing on teacher and student partnerships using multimedia and collaborative tools in the classroom. The Los Angeles team launched a fundraising campaign supporting children in the heart of Skid Row — promoting and strengthening the direct involvement of digital citizens in the society at large.

In addition to the physical events, Social Media Week organizers will also live-stream many of the events and host real time conversations at socialmediaweek.org, thus reaching a vast worldwide public. Also planned are live interactions among participants in the various cities (where time zones permit). And of course there is always need for volunteers to help organize or promote events in your city for next year, to spread the word around the globe…

Yoani Sanchez denied another traveling visa

Bernardo Parrella — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:13:36 +0000

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez tweets about another visa refusal for traveling, this time to receive the World Press Freedom Hero Award in Vienna, Austria. And it seems unlikely she could attend the Internet for Peace conference (New York City, Sept. 21), a global initiative aimed at supporting the Internet as a candidate for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, where Yoani is one its official ambassadors.

Italy: NO to Restrictions on Online Free Speech

Bernardo Parrella — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:09:15 +0000

While the recent WikiLeaks experience [EN] reveals aspirations to build “information freedom zones” with some help from Iceland [EN], the Italian government seems to be heading in the opposite direction.

A Media and Wiretapping Bill [EN] that was under consideration by the Italian parliament for two years (harshly criticized by the United Nations) [all links in Italian from here] would have introduced a “gag rule” by restricting journalists from publishing wiretapping records during investigations, possibly in the public interest. Thanks to sustained protest by citizens and journalists, these restrictions were formally removed from the text of the bill on July 21. Yet somehow the new version still includes a small clause aimed at directly restricting online free speech,the so-called “blog-killing” provision (par. 29 of art. 1). As the group blog MAVAFFANCULP explains it:

Una norma introdotta riguarda infatti proprio il mondo del web e non si capisce cosa c'entri con le intercettazioni telefoniche. E' infatti fatto obbligo a qualsiasi blog e quindi a qualsiasi blogger di rettificare nello spazio di 48 ore una notizia o un articolo che possa contenere una informazione non corretta.

In sostanza, se la norma venisse approvata, tutti i blogger dovrebbero stare all'erta per pubblicare una eventuale rettifica che gli sia richiesta pena una multa di 12.500 euro. Non c'è verso di fare neppure una settimana di vacanza tranquilli! E' evidente che questo porterà molti siti a una scelta drastica. O si chiude o si smette di occuparci di argomenti su cui i potenti, e i loro agguerriti avvocati, sono particolarmente sensibili.

One of the proposed provisions is specifically aimed at the online world and it is not clear what this has to do with wiretaps. It would become mandatory for any blog to rectify within 48 hours any news or articles that might contain incorrect information.

Basically, if the law is approved like it is now, all bloggers are required to promptly fix any requested correction or be fined up to 12,500 Euros. No way that we can even take a short vacation! Obviously this will force many sites to make a drastic choice. Either to close down entirely or stop dealing with issues about which powerful people, and their aggressive lawyers, are particularly sensitive.

Once again, people are voicing their discontent on the Net and on the streets. The web-community Valigia Blu coordinated most of the activity in the last weeks, including a large rally scheduled for Thursday July 29 at 4pm, in Piazza Montecitorio, in downtown Rome, to mark the beginning of the final bill discussion on the Parliament floor.

No Gag Rule protest, Piazza Navona,
Rome, 1 July (CC BY-NC-SA)

In the meantime people are encouraged to sign a letter to MPs in order to “reopen the debate and par. 29 of art.1″: it has been signed by over 11,000 citizens so far, along with other 240,000 signatures gathered during the previous rally held in Rome on July 1st – see picture on the left, from the Valigia Blu photostream on Flickr.

Many self-produced videos are circulating on YouTube, including the following video by nikilnero.

Information is also spread via Twitter under the hashtag #nobavaglio:

- http://nobavaglio.adds.it has a petition against the Gag Rule, can you please help me get people to sign it?

- local Web-TV risks closure, this strict law is threatening the life of 350+ of them

- confusion reigns here, as in the most backward, forgotten, anonymous state…

The Facebook group No Legge Bavaglio has passed 6,500 members (reaching 11,000 if adding the website supporters) and continues to share updates and news stories:

- You can’t even stop for a minute here, not even the time for a coffee! (arianna)

Therefore it’s quite bizarre what's happening in the Parliament. Or maybe it isn’t, actually. The web has in fact decentralized the news production, with the result that the control on information created by citizens is getting weaker day by day. For some, this is evidently a problem. For all the others it is, indeed a success to be extended and improved.

Mainstream media also oppose the proposed regulation, explaining that anybody sharing content on the web (including radio and TV websites) would be subject to the same “correction requirement”. The website of the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano writes:

Tutte le web tv ed i video blogger italiani, in forza degli emanandi regolamenti, dovranno chiedere all’Agcom un’autorizzazione – o almeno indirizzarle una dichiarazione di inizio attività -, versare 3000 euro per il rimborso delle spese di istruttoria (quali?) e, soprattutto, finiranno assoggettati, tra gli altri al solito obbligo di rettifica, sempre entro 48 ore e sempre sotto la minaccia di una sanzione fino a 12 mila e 500 euro .

L’obiettivo dell’ultimo scellerato progetto di Palazzo sembra evidente: ora che il Cavaliere si accinge a sbarcare in Rete avendone forse, almeno, subodorato le enormi potenzialità, la vuole tutta per lui, per i suoi amici e per i soli suoi nemici che ha, comunque, la garanzia di poter controllare almeno in termini economici.

According to these forthcoming regulations, all Italian Web-TV and video-bloggers must file an application with the Communications Authority - or at least inform them of their official activity - pay 3,000 Euros for a potential investigation reimbursement (what kind?) and, above all, will be subject to the same correction requirement applied to mainstream media, always within 48 hours and at risk of a penalty up to 12,500 euros.

The objective of this now infamous bill by Berlusconi seems clear. Now that he is about to arrive on the Net, having perhaps sensed its enormous potential, he wants to keep it all to himself, his friends and the few enemies he can control in economic terms.

Other online comments address the negative consequences of this “gag rule” on e-commerce activities, as explained by Enrico Giubertoni on Buzzes:

È immorale poiché impedisce de facto ogni forma di critica, è antieconomico poiché impedirà di affermare un principio cardine del Social Media Marketing ovvero il giudizio su un prodotto. Se scriverò che il prodotto A non è bene mentre B è meglio, il produttore di A potrà obbligarmi a rettificare. Come faremo a fare InfoCommerce con l’Ammazza Blog?

It is immoral because it actually prevents any form of criticism, it is anti-economical since it reverses the basic principle of social media marketing, which is the user rating of a product. If I write that product A is not so good, while item B works better, the producer of A could force me to rectify that statement. How are we going to pursue InfoCommerce with this “blog-killing” provision?

Some specific amendments to repeal the “blog-killing” clause have already been announced, but the broader context reveals a new government crisis looming and an on-going intent to impose limitations on the democratic expression of citizens. However, in the Parliament everybody keeps mum. Nobody even seems to know how and why that tiny provision ended up in the wiretap bill.

In a blog post titled “Il legislatore fantasma” (The Ghost Lawmaker), Massimo Melica says:

Ho provato in ogni stanza, corridoio, stanzino ministeriale…nessuno conosce o ricorda chi ha redatto il testo inserito nel “ddl intercettazioni”, nella parte che riguarda Internet.
Ho sfidato il Sig. Nessuno e nessuno ha accettato la mia sfida.
Quindi ci ritroveremo una norma (comma 29 art.1 ddl intercettazioni) pensata da Nessuno, voluta da Nessuno e scritta da Nessuno ma alla fine approvata dal Parlamento italiano.
Inutile gridare al complotto perchè non c’è, si tratta della burocrazia e della politica incapace di tener traccia dei suoi movimenti.

I've looked in every room, hallway, closet of the Ministry … nobody knows or remembers who wrote that provision about the internet included in the “wiretap bill”.
I challenged Mr. Nobody and nobody has met my challenge.
So we will have a law (par. 29 of art. 1) thought up by Nobody, wanted and drafted by Nobody, but finally approved by the Italian Parliament.
It's pointless arguing against a conspiracy that doesn't exist, perhaps at fault are just bureaucracy and politics unable to keep track of their own developments.

UPDATE (30 July): The Parliament eventually decided to post-pone the bill discussion to September.

The GVO Italian team contributed to the original post and its translation.

Italy: Large protest against “gag” rule bill on local media

Bernardo Parrella — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:56:01 +0000

“No Bavaglio” (No Gag) is a large protest movement in Italy against a proposed privacy law that would impose heavy fines on newspapers (and blogs) that publish transcripts of phone calls. The law is suspect, because wiretapping has played a key role in media investigations that have led to mafia arrests and political scandals. The mobilization is taking place on Liberarete.tv and Facebook group, among other online venues.

USA: Hemp History Week, Saving Plant and Planet

Bernardo Parrella — Fri, 21 May 2010 22:34:27 +0000

The variety of appearances for cannabis. Only C. sativa (left) is suited for industrial hemp, but it also has medicinal varieties.

In tough economic times, why would anyone ban industrial farming of a highly profitable and useful plant that requires almost no pesticides and can be used to make textiles, food, animal fodder, and alternatives to petroleum, cotton, and pulp wood?

When the plant is called “hemp” (Cannabis genus) the reason it is illegal in the United States has all to do with politics. Some strains of the plant can be used to produce marijuana, a mild but mostly illegal drug that most politicians are eager to distance themselves from.

Hemp History Week from May 17-23, 2010, is an event by the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp to highlight the many benefits of legalizing hemp production in the United States. Growing hemp is legal in many countries, and was also previously legal in the United States.

The whole initiative is taking full advantage of online tools and social media to push to remove barriers to industrial hemp farming in the U.S. through education, legislation and advocacy. Only 16 States have passed pro-hemp farming legislation so far. Hemp History Week is asking supporters to sign and send postcards urging President Obama and Attorney General Holder to change federal policy, and supporters are so far planing to host nearly 200 local events nationwide.

This video from their YouTube channel includes interviews with renowned figures (such as Dr. Andrew Weil) who make the case for a growing market for industrial hemp products:

Here is just one image from the many pictures submitted for the “You + Historical Site” award:

Hemptress Handbags: Earthday 2010. Submitted by Arlene Nilsson

On Facebook, the Hemp History Week page now has over 1,000 fans, while about 6,500 people “like” the related VoteHemp page. Along with a variety of comments and suggestions, people are sharing useful tips, like:

Looking for lunch? Stop by and sample hemp foods at New Seasons Market's at Orenco station in honor of Hemp History Week from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Many citizens are blogging and tweeting about the event, also sharing little known facts about hemp local history. Outta the way blog says:

In the state of Pennsylvania, particularly the farming communities of York and Lancaster counties hemp was very big business. Due to their proximity to the Susquehanna river these two counties became the epicenter for hemp growing in Pennsylvania. Every township in Lancaster grew hemp, particularly Hempfield Township. Between 1720 and 1870 there were more than 100 mills in Lancaster county that processed hemp fiber. That fiber was used to help cover many Conestoga wagons, which were built in the small town of Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

In case you didn't know, according to Hemp History Week, “George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Henry Ford and many other notable Americans were actively engaged in, and openly advocated for, the commercial hemp industry”, while Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in his Monticello resort”. If all the buzz is not enough to convince you of the thousands of planet-friendly uses of hemp, there are even plenty of resources and suggestions for taking action online to support hemp-growing worldwide.