I would like to start
with the story of Mary,
a woman from an African village.
Her first memories
are of her family fleeing violent riots
orchestrated
by the ruling political party.
Her brother was murdered
by the state-sponsored militia,
and she was raped more than once
just because she belonged to the wrong party.
One morning, a month before the election,
Mary's village was called to another intimidation meeting.
In this meeting, these men standing in front of them
telling them, "We know who you are,
we know who you will vote for,
and if you're not going to drop the right paper,
we're going to take revenge."
But for Mary, this meeting is different.
She feels different.
This time, she's waiting for this meeting,
because this time, she's carrying
a small hidden camera in her dress,
a camera that nobody else can see.
Nobody is allowed to film in these meetings.
You risk your life if you do.
Mary knows that, but she also knows
that the only way to stop them
and to protect herself
and her community
is to expose their intimidation,
to make sure they understand
somebody is following them,
to break the impunity they feel.
Mary and her friends were filming
for months undercover
the intimidation of the ruling political party.
(Video) [Filmed With Hidden Cameras]
Man: We are going to speak about the upcoming elections.
Nothing can stup us from doing what we want.
If we hear you are with [the opposition]
we will not forgive you.
[Militia Intimidation Rally]
[The Party] can torture you at any time.
The youth can beat you.
[Disruption of Political Meeting]
For those who lie, saying they are back with [the Party],
your time is running out.
[Party Youth Militia]
Some have died because they rebelled.
Some have lost their homes.
If you don't work together with [the Party],
you will lead a very bad life.
Oren Yakobovich: These images were broadcast all over the world,
but more importantly,
they have been broadcast
back to the community.
The perpetrators saw them too.
They understood somebody is following them.
They got scared. Impunity was broken.
Mary and her friends forced
the ruling political party
not to use violence during the election,
and saved hundreds of lives.
Mary is just one of hundreds of people
that my organization had helped
to document human rights violations
using cameras.
My background should have led me to a different direction.
I was born in Israel
to a right-wing family,
and as long as I remember myself,
I wanted to join the Israeli army
to serve my country and prove that I was
what I believed was our right
for the whole land.
I joined the Israeli army just after
the first intifada, the first Palestinian uprising,
and I served in one of the hard-minded,
toughest, aggressive infantry units,
and I got the biggest gun in my platoon.
Quite fast, I became an officer
and got soldiers under my command,
and as time passed, I started serving in the West Bank,
and I saw these images.
I didn't like what I saw.
It took me a while,
but eventually I refused to serve in the West Bank
and had to spend time in jail.
It was a bit
— (Applause) —
It was not that bad, I have to say.
It was a bit like being in a hotel,
but with very shitty food.
In jail, I kept thinking that
I need people to know,
I need people to understand
what's the reality in the West Bank looks like.
I need them to hear what I heard,
I need them to see what I saw,
but I also understood, we needed
Palestinians themselves,
the people that are suffering,
to be able to tell their own stories,
not journalists or filmmakers
that are coming outside of the situation.
I joined a human rights organization,
Israeli human rights organization called B'Tselem.
Together, we analyzed the West Bank
and picked a hundred families that are living in the most risky places:
close to checkpoints, near army bases,
side by side with settlers.
We gave them cameras and training.
Quite fast, we started getting
very disturbing images
about how the settlers
and the soldiers are abusing them.
I would like to share with you
two clips from this project.
Both of them were broadcast in Israel,
and it created a massive debate,
and I have to warn you,
some of you might find them
quite explicit.
The masked men you will see in the first clips
are Jewish settlers.
Minutes before the camera was turned on,
they approached a Palestinian family
that was working their land
and told them that they have to leave the land,
because this land belongs to the Jewish settlers.
The Palestinians refused.
Let's see what happened.
The masked men that are approaching
are Jewish settlers.
They are approaching the Palestinian family.
This is a demonstration in the West Bank.
The guy in green is Palestinian.
He will be arrested in a second.
Here you see him blindfolded and handcuffed.
In a few seconds, he regrets he came
to this demonstration.
He'd been shot in the foot
with a rubber bullet.
He is okay.
Not all the settlers and the soldiers
are acting this way.
We're talking about a tiny minority,
but they have to be brought to justice.
This clips, and others like them,
forced the army and the police to start investigations.
They've been shown in Israel, of course,
and the Israeli public was exposed to them also.
This project redefined the struggle for human rights
in the Occupied Territories,
and we managed to reduce
the number of violent attacks
in the West Bank.
The success of this project got me thinking
how I can take the same methodology
to other places in the world.
Now, we tend to believe that today,
with all of the technology,
the smartphone and the Internet,
we are able to see and understand
most of what's happening in the world,
and people are able to tell their story,
but it's only partly true.
Until today, with all the technology we have,
less than half of the world's population
has access to the Internet,
and more than three billion people
— I'm repeating the number,
three billion people — are consuming news
that is censored by those in power.
More or less around the same,
I'm approached by a great guy named Uri Fruchtmann.
He's a filmmaker and an activist.
We understood we are thinking along the same line,
and we decided to establish Videre,
our organization, together.
While building the organization in London,
we've been traveling undercover to places
where community was suffering from abuses,
where mass atrocities were happening,
and there was a lack of reporting.
We tried to understand how we can help.
There were four things that I learned.
The first thing is that we have to engage
with communities that are living in the rural areas,
where violations are happening far from the public eyes.
We need to partner with them,
and we need to understand which images
are not making it out there
and help them to document them.
The second thing I learned
is that we have to enable them to film
in a safe way.
Security has to be the priority.
Where I used to work before, in the West Bank,
one can take a camera out,
most likely not going to get shot,
but in places we wanted to work,
just try to pull a phone out, and you're dead, literally dead.
This is why we decided
to take the operation undercover
when necessary,
and use mostly hidden cameras.
Unfortunately, I can't show you the hidden cameras we're using today
for obvious reasons,
but this is cameras we used before.
You can buy them off the shelf.
Today, we're building a custom-made
hidden camera,
like the one that Mary was wearing
in her dress to film the intimidation meeting
of the ruling political party.
It's a camera that nobody can see
that blends into the environment,
into the surroundings.
Now, filming securities go beyond
using hidden cameras.
Being secure starts way before
the activist is turning the camera on.
To keep our partners safe,
we work to understand the risk of every location
and of every shot before it's happened,
building a backup plan if something goes wrong,
and make sure we have everything in place
before our operations start.
The third thing I learned
is the importance of verification.
You can have an amazing shot of atrocity,
but if you can't verify it,
it's worth nothing.
Recently, like in the ongoing war in Syria
or the war in Gaza, we've seen images
that are staged or brought from a different conflict.
This misinformation destroys
the credibility of the source,
and it's harmed the credibility of other
reliable and trustworthy sources.
We use a variety of ways to make sure
we can verify the information
and we can trust the materials.
It's starting with vetting the partners,
understanding who they are,
and working with them very intensively.
How do you film a location?
You film road signs, you film ???,
you film newspapers.
We are checking maps, looking maps,
double-checking the information,
and looking also at the metadata
of the material.
Now, the fourth and the most important thing I learned
is how you use images to create
a positive change.
To have an effect,
the key thing is how you use the material.
Today, we're working with hundreds of activists
filming undercover.
We work with them both
to understand the situation on the ground
and which images are missing
to describe it,
who are the ones
that are influencing the situation,
and when to release the material
to advance the struggle.
Sometimes, it's about putting it in the media,
mostly local ones, to create awareness.
Sometimes it's working with decision makers,
to change laws.
Sometimes, it's working with lawyers
to use as evidence in a court.
But more than often,
the most effective way
to create a social change
is to work within the community.
I want to give you one example.
Fatuma is part of a network of women
that are fighting abuses in Kenya.
Women in her community have been harassed constantly
on their way to school
and on their way to work.
They are trying to change the behavior
of the community from inside.
In the next clip,
Fatuma is taking us with her
on her journey to work.
Her voice is super-imposed
on images that she filmed herself
using hidden cameras.
(Video) Fatuma Chiusku: My name is Fatuma Chiusku.
I'm 32 years old, a mother,
And Ziwa La Ng'Ombe is my home.
Each morning, I ride the mini-bus
Number 11.
But instead of a peaceful journey to work
each day begins with fear.
Come with me now
and use my eyes
to feel what I feel.
As I walk, I think to myself:
Will I be touched?
Grabbed?
Violated by this conductor again?
Even the men inside
the way they look at me
touch my body, rub against me,
grab me,
and now, as I sit in my seat
I only wish my mind was full of thoughts for my day,
my dreams, my children at school,
but instead I worry about the moment when we will arrive
and I will be violated again.
OY: Today, there is a new front
in the fight for human rights.
I used to carry a big gun.
Now, I am carrying this.
This is much more powerful
and a much, much more effective weapon.
But we have to use its power wisely
By putting the right images
in the right hands at the right time,
we can truly create an impact.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)