The DocoRights Project was established to protect the freedoms of expression and protest, by providing demonstrators with support and advice. The project has been developed into a smartphone application, which provides activists on the ground with quick and easy access to useful information on their rights and places that they can turn to for help.
Our project field co-ordinator is available to assist activists when their rights are infringed upon; to address the obstacles that are often imposed when applying for approval for demonstrations; and with respect to clashes with police during demonstrations.
The project provides activists with important tools, including workshops in documenting and photographing protests. Two workshops will take place this month in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and in April workshops will be held in Be’er Sheva and Haifa. Accurate documentation is a powerful tool in social struggles. It allows for the struggle to be portrayed effectively to the general public, for example by distributing a video across social networks or via independent reporting in the media. This has the potential to influence public opinion, to affect policy change and can also be used as evidence in court.
It is supposedly very simple to document struggles today. We have excellent cameras on our phones, and when something happens we can just take out our phones and take pictures. But activists are often disappointed when the footage turns out to be useless. For example, in many cases, there is documentation of police brutality during protests; but it is impossible to use the footage because of the instability or distance of the camera, or because of the active involvement of the photographer. Our workshops invite activists to learn how to document demonstrations and protests correctly and to a high standard – with help from the photographers of ActiveStills, who have been doing so for more than a decade. Please sign up and spread the word to your friends and colleagues.
Our response to attempts to reduce the democratic space in Israel is to focus on projects such as DocoRights, which promote freedom of expression. Our response to slander and delegitimization is to continue to work and act towards protecting human rights and democracy in Israel.
