Danny O'Brien led the Nov. 10  Liberation Technology seminar on the topic, “Reports from the Bleeding Edge: What Journalism in Syria, China and Iran tell us about Silicon Valley's Future”. O'Brien is the Internet Advocacy Coordinator at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which was founded in New York in 1981 with the aim of defending individual journalists worldwide.

O'Brien argued in the seminar that after focusing on mainstream journalists for more than a decade, CPJ started its Internet program based on the realization that a considerable number of people who are jailed for their journalistic work worldwide are online journalists. CPJ’s Internet program is aimed at protecting them through their involvement in their individual cases, research and lobbying. Through these efforts CPJ hopes to create an online ecosystem that is generally safe for most users, and for journalists who use the online medium.

This wide-ranging talk took us through different kinds of threats that journalists face in the online space including attacks against their websites, lack of legal protections, and physical dangers that journalists face based on the available information about themselves and their sources. O'Brien argued that while there are tools being developed to protect activists that could potentially be used by journalists, such tools are rarely used since journalists do not think of the threats to their work until they actually get into trouble. CPJ is committed to making the online environment safe for all journalists, rather than just providing training to journalists on precautionary measures.

He discussed some of the issues that CPJ has been advocating among large internet corporations and governments, and the strategy of enabling journalists themselves to meet with such agencies to make a persuasive case.

Visiting Scholar Ahmed Benchemsi discusses the seemingly paradoxic relationship between the independent media and the Moroccan government in two pieces for Harvard's Nieman Reports. Editor of two best-selling weekly magazines in Morocco - TelQuel and Nishan - Benchemsi brought controversial and taboo subjects to the public's attention, often incriminating the king himself. In these revealing articles, Benchemsi shares the details of how the regime bankrupted his publications and drove a generation of avant-garde journalists out of Morocco.

RRamesh Srinivasan, assistant professor at UCLA in design and media/information studies, delivered the Oct. 20 Liberation Technology seminar. The talk was entitled, “Layers of Networks: How the Street, Institutions, and Mediascape Converge in Egypt.” This wide ranging talk takes us through his fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan, India and other countries and culminates with his recent fieldwork in Egypt on the use of social media in the revolution. Through these journeys he argues that technology has the potential to act as a ‘bridge’ that could connect peoples across cultures.

Ramesh discusses his field experiments in India where he provided people in his fieldwork villages with video cameras to document any issue that was valuable to them, and discovered that the process of recording and watching the videos helped in developing broad social priorities. Similarly during his work in Kyrgyzstan and in Egypt he observed that a small sphere of bloggers used social media to create strong ties among themselves, and given the media ecology with the social media having connections with other media, they ended up having a broader reach among the international community. In essence, they served as bridges communicating across boundaries.

The key themes of the talk revolved around the concepts of bridges, interfaces and networks. Ramesh argued that he has sought to understand the role that technology could play in fostering meaningful dialogue among peoples who have different vocabularies and understandings with which they approach the world i.e. “What bridges will bring people together in terms of multi-cultural interaction?” Ramesh argued that technologies are culturally constructed, and culturally created and that technologies can serve as bridges if diverse cultural values or ontologies are considered in their design. Technologies can then act as bridges to connect people across networks.

The talk takes us through the complexities of social media serving as a bridge and discusses preliminary ideas for designing an online architecture that could provide a space for multiple voices and serve as a bridge across different cultures.

The Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is hosting the Human Rights Watch 2011 Voices for Justice honorees at a special event at Stanford University on November 18, 2011. This year's honorees —Consuelo Morales and Sussan Tahmasebi— will discuss their work defending human rights on the front lines in Mexico and Iran.

The Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is hosting the Human Rights Watch 2011 Voices for Justice honorees at a special event at Stanford University on November 18, 2011. This year's honorees —Consuelo Morales and Sussan Tahmasebi— will discuss their work defending human rights on the front lines in Mexico and Iran.

“These women are powerful and inspirational leaders," said Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights at CDDRL. "It is a rare and unique opportunity for the Stanford community to learn from their experiences and heroism.” Sitting at the intersection of research and policy, the Program on Human Rights provides a forum for Stanford faculty who work in disciplines that engage or border on human rights and student-initiated human rights groups on campus.

Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. Each year Human Rights Watch honors individuals who have put their lives and safety at risk in the name of defending human rights, presenting these human rights defenders with The Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism.

Consuelo Morales works in Mexico defending victims of human rights violations to hold their abusers accountable. Security forces have committed widespread violations against civilians in Mexico—including torture, rape, and “disappearances”—yet their crimes are virtually never investigated. In the face of intimidation, Morales’s organization continues to lead efforts in the state of Nuevo Leon to document these abuses, litigate key cases, and provide critical support for victims of violent crime. Human Rights Watch honors Morales because of her courageous efforts to end impunity and aid victims of abuses in Mexico’s “war on drugs.”

Sussan Tahmasebi raises broad public awareness about how discriminatory laws violate the human rights of women in Iran. She helped found the award winning One Million Signatures Campaign, which rallies support for an end to Iran’s gender-biased laws. Tahmasebi has been harassed by security forces and was banned from traveling abroad because of her work. Human Rights Watch honors Tahmasebi for her fearless commitment to promoting civil society and bringing national prominence to women's rights issues in Iran.

“We are proud to be honoring two remarkable women and we are thrilled to be able to bring these exceptional defenders to engage with the Stanford human rights community,” said Andrea Dew Steele, director of the California Committee North at Human Rights Watch.

The Human Rights Defenders on the Front Line event will be held at the Bechtel Conference Center at Encina Hall on November 18 from 12:00 to 1:30PM.

For more information and to RSVP, please click Human Rights Defenders on the Front Line: a conversation with 2011 HRW honorees.

To learn more about the 2011 Human Rights Watch Voices for Justice Dinner on November 17, please visit: http://hrw.org/san-francisco

The killing of Muammar Qadaffi marks an end to one of the most dramatic chapters of the Arab Spring. But what follows after the death of a dictator who has held power for 42 years? Lina Khatib, the head of the Arab Reform and Democracy program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discusses Qaddafi’s death and its significance for Libya and its neighbors.

What’s next for Libya?

Libya faces a complicated journey ahead. Qaddafi never developed state institutions in Libya, so the National Transitional Council faces the challenge of building a state system almost from scratch. This makes democratic transition in Libya much more difficult than that in Egypt and Tunisia. Another challenge is potential internal power struggles over leadership of the country, which may be fueled by existing tribal rivalries.

Is this the end of an era of Arab autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa? 

Qaddafi's death signals the end of an era for Libya, and a sobering reminder to Arab autocrats who are refusing to listen to their people of their potential fate. However, I wish Qaddafi were captured alive and given a fair trial. That would have sent a stronger message to other Arab autocrats--unfortunately, for some, Qaddafi's death has already transformed him into a celebrated martyr.

Is Qaddafi’s death a larger victory for the Arab Spring?

It is only a matter of time before leaders like Assad of Syria and Saleh of Yemen are forced to step down, whether violently or not. Qaddafi's death, however, will not necessarily make those leaders more likely to cede power.

It is possible that, following a now-established pattern of thinking of themselves in exceptional terms, they might think that, unlike Qaddafi, they can "outsmart" their oppositions and the international community.

I think we need to think about what this death means for the people in places like Syria and Yemen. It may take time, but Arab protesters in Yemen and Syria will prevail, and Qaddafi's death is an empowering factor to them. The death of Qaddafi is not going to be the biggest catalyst for autocrats to leave power; the steadfastness of the people on the street is the deciding factor.