DigiActive.org

Opportunities: Mozilla Service Week ‘09 (Sept 14-21)

We encourage all our readers (and members) to take advantage of the opportunity provided by Mozilla Service Week and its partners from September 14th to September 21st. Non profit organizations, activists and causes can seek tech help from thousands of volunteers who have already pledged more than 9000 hours providing assistance in web design, social media outreach, tech training, etc..

The project website details some ways you can provide and seek help:

During the week of September 14-21, you can make a serious difference in your local community. Here are just a few ideas of ways you can help:

• Teach senior citizens how to use the Web.
• Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters.
• Help install a wireless network at a school.
• Create Web how-to materials for a library’s computer cluster.
• Refurbish hardware for a local computer center.
• Update a non-profit organization’s website.
• Teach the values of the open Web to other public benefit organizations.

Opportunities for Activists

Searching through #MozService09 opportunities on the Idealist website for “Activism” related projects already turns up about 30 interesting projects internationally including:

1. Graphic Designer
   Wetlands Activism Collective
   New York, New York  United States
   Last updated on: July 24, 2009
   Description: Wetlands Activism Collective seeks a graphic design student, professional, or other graphic skilled individual to design websites, publications, banners, presentations and educational displays. Helpful Skills: * Proficiency in graphic design for w…

1. Human Rights department
   ThirdWay Human Rights & Development NGO
   Amersfoort, Netherlands  Virtual
   Last updated on: September 3, 2009
   Description: One of ThirdWay’s primary goals in the future is to develop a Human Rights Education Centre in Anyako, Ghana. The center will be a beacon of activism and progress for the community. It will primarily focus on providing Human Rights classes that emphasize ..

Follow the Discussion on Twitter:

You can follow the discussion about the service week on twitter by following the #MozService09 hashtag.

The project is also hosting a Twitter chat on Monday, September 14, at 9am Pacific ( 5pm London time, 9:30pm in India) and will last for 1.5 hours.

DigiActive’s Participation:

Members of the (already all-volunteer) DigiActive team who think this is a brilliant idea have pledged to provide 100 hours of help to any organization or activist cause seeking assistance with their online strategies and digital activism tactics through the Service Week.

We also receive daily requests from activist campaigns working on human rights issues asking for technology and strategy assistance and we will encourage them to post their requests & find volunteers through #mozservice09.

Action Alert: 4 Ways You Can Help Free Moroccan Blogger Mohammed Erraji

As you may have been following through the DigiActive Twitter Feed, Moroccan blogger Mohammed Erraji was arrested last Friday, September 5th following the publication on the online news site Hespress.com of an article entitled “The King Encourages His Subject’s Dependency” (English) He was sentenced 72 hours later, in an expedited trial without assitance from a lawyer, to two years in jail and a fine of 5000MAD for “failure to uphold the respect due to the king”.

In a movement of solidarity reminiscent of the one which surrounded the campaign to help free Facebook prisonner Fouad Mourtada earlier this year,  the Moroccan blogosphere was quick to mobilize and condemn the arrest. Various international organizations such as Reporters without Borders, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and IFEX also issued statements calling for his immediate release. On Thursday September 11th, citing procedural misteps, a court in the southern city of Agadir granted him bail and he has been “provisionally released” pending his appeal trial next Tuesday.

Supporters who have set up www.HelpErraji.com , Moroccan bloggers and online activists are circulating messages calling all who support Mohammed Erraji to express their solidarity and contribute to the international mobilisation to free him. They have outlined a series of steps and actions including signing an online petition, joining a facebook group, sending photo messages and participating in a blog strike next monday:

1. Express Support by Sending Photo Messages:

You can display your solidarity by taking a picture of yourself with a message to Free Mohammed Erraji. Please also write where you are from in the message then send the photo to PhotoErraji@gmail.com, everyone who has a camera should participate! All the submitted photos can be viewed on this Flickr account.

2. Join the Facebook Group:

Express your support by joining the “Free Moroccan Blogger Mohammed Erraji” group and help amplify the message by changing your profile picture to the following. Don’t forget to also invite your friends!

3. Sign the Petition:

A petition calling for the immediate acquittal of Mohammed Erraji and the suspension of his sentence is available at www.helperraji.com

4. Participate in the Blogoma (Moroccan Blogsphere) Blog Strike :

Monday September 15th, on the eve of the appeal trial, several Moroccan bloggers and others around the world will start a blog strike that will last 24 hours. Those who wish to join to this movement will announce that their blog is on strike, indicate the reason they chose to participate in the strike, mention the details of the case and link back to the site put up in support for Mohammad Erraji. To introduce others to the strike several bloggers are ciculating a short descriptive text, and the english translation has been made available by blogger Jillian York.

Using a Camera Phone and Youtube to Document Police Brutality in Morocco

Description: The small southern port city of Sidi Ifni in Morocco has recently seen recurrent clashes between the country’s security forces and protesters denouncing rampant unemployment and corruption.  While Le Matin, the country’s leading pro-government newspaper was headlining that calm and normalcy had returned to the city (See Article in French here) a video taken using a cell phone camera was posted on Youtube showing the shocking brutality of police forces and the disproportionate use of force and violence during arrests.

Tool: Dipity Makes Creating Interactive Timelines Easy

Tool Description: Dipity allows you to create interactive timelines which can be embedded into your blog, campaign website or social networking profile. Chronological information is presented graphically using any combination of text, pictures or videos. Users can choose between a traditional timeline view, a list view, a flipbook view or a map view which presents any geotagged data or entry on a google map.

Activist Application: Campaign websites often have dedicated pages detailing background information on the campaign or the cause in addition to multiple entries or posts detailing any new or recent developments. It is often a challenge to present such information in a way that is easily and quickly understood by the average reader who might not necessarily be familiar with the campaign’s intricacies. As a visual illustration, a Dipity timeline makes it much easier to follow a succession of events and understand their details. In the example below, the FreeKareem.org is using the timeline to display the developments of the case of jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer since the day of his arrest as well as developments in the campaign to free him.





Useful Features:  in addition to the ability to include multimedia such as pictures and videos in the timeline itself, an interesting feature of Dipity is the possiblity of collaboration. Several users can edit a single timeline simultaneously and work together in inputing entries and information. Timelines can also be linked to feeds and be automatically created and updatted through entries from your Picasa, Twitter, Pandora, Wordpress, Last.fm, Flickr, Yelp, Blogger, Youtube account or any regular RSS feed.

 

Action Alert: Free Esraa and her Companions

What? Join one of the Facebook groups pushing for the freedom of the 3 digital activists jailed in Egypt: Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, Mahamed El Sharkawi,and Kareem El Beheiri

When? Now!

Where? The Facebook groups to join are divided linguistically. Join the one in the language you are most comfortable with, as you will likely be receiving messages in that language from the group.

Arabic: Free Esraa افرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

English: Free Esraa and her Companions! أفرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

French: Libérez Esraa et ses Camarades. Free Esraa.

Norsk: Free Esraa and her Companions!

How? Click one of the links above to visit the group you would and then click the “Join” button on that page.

Why? On April 6th we covered the story of Egyptian activists using a Facebook group, 6 April – اضراب عام لشعب مصر (April 6 – General Strike for the People of Egypt), to drum up participation in a general strike on Sunday, April 6. The group’s founder Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and bloggers Mahamed El Sharkawi and Kareem El Beheiri were arrested by Egyptian police in connection with the Facebook group and the call of the strike.

Who is organizing the action? There are slightly different officers and admins for the 4 groups, but Egyptians Hany Elkhayat, Samy Harak, Wael Nawara, Manal Fahmy, and Mohamed Zaki Elsheemi seem to be involved with most of them. Dina Ibrahim is the sole admin of the French group.

Tactic: Saudi Activist Uses Youtube to Advocate for Womens’ Right to Drive…

Description: On International Women’s Rights day, a video of a woman in Saudi Arabia defying the country’s ban on female drivers in urban areas was posted on the video-sharing site YouTube. At the wheel of her car, rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider, describes the injustice and appeals to the Saudi Government to expand women’s rights in the country and lift the ban.

Organizer: Human Rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider. 125 other people signed an accompanying petition that was delivered to the Saudi Ministry of interior that same day.

Purpose of Action: To celebrate International Women’s Rights day and call for the lifting of the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia.

Organizing Tools: The video was uploaded to and posted on the video-sharing site Youtube.com

Outcome: The story was picked up by all major international news organizations which has helped to widely publicize the action. Bloggers around the world have also helped amplify the message by writing on the story and posting links to the video, which has so far been viewed more than 120,000 times.

Link to Video with English dubbing

DigiActive News: New Team Member Dan Schultz

We’re pleased to welcome Dan Schultz from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, to the DigiActive team. In 2007 he was one of 27 individuals to win the first Knight News Challenge and he is currently an active blogger for the MediaShift Idea Lab. He is still discovering new interests, but digital media as a community facilitation device has been a driving directional force since he started using the Internet. He believes that activism and community often go hand in hand, so writing for Digiactive provides a perfect opportunity to explore the community dynamics of digital media.

We look forward to his contribution and would like to invite all those interested to check out the different ways to get involved with DigiActive!

DigiActive News: New Team Member Simon Columbus

We are very pleased to welcome a new team member to the DigiActive project:

Simon Columbus from Siegen, Germany, started blogging in early 2007, and has been involved in several human & civil rights projects. He is part of the Free Burma Action, and is a member of the German anti-data retention movement. In the wake of the bloggers response to Burma’s saffron revolution, Simon co-founded the digital activism site Blogger for Freedom. He is also a member of the international Blog4Burma Coalition and an editor for FreeKareem. Additionally, Simon co-founded the Waldorf blog Namenstnzer and has a personal blog at simoncolumbus.de.

We look forward to his contribution and would like to invite all those interested to check out the different ways to get involved with DigiActive:

DigiActive isn’t a web site. It’s a community of people who care passionately about digital activism, who are creating a world of activists empowered by digital technology. It’s a community by and for activists. Come join us! Here’s how to get involved.

1. Sign Yourself Up

Enter your e-mail address on the DigiActive homepage in the field labeled “Join Us!” Then we will keep you up date by sending you news of the latest cool things happening at DigiActive. We give you our solemn promise that we will not send you spam or other e-mail annoyances.

2. Write for DigiActive

The primary means we have for spreading the word about digital activism is by writing about it. We are always looking for people to write about a new digital activism tool, tactic, campaign, action, guide the list goes on. And you don’t need to write in English! We are looking for writers in all languages, Read more »

Action Alert: Flood the Jail with Mail

What? “Flood the Jail with Mail” campaign in support of detained Egyptian blogger Kareem Suleiman

When?  April 7th through April 21st

Where? From around the world to a jail cell in Alexandria, Egypt

How? Supporters are urged to send their messages of solidarity by mail to Kareem to the following address:

Alexandria, Borg Al-Arab Prison, Room 1 Section 22, Prisoner Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman, The Arab Republic of Egypt, Kareem’s address in Arabic (mandatory to be included on the envelope)

Why? “to remind Egyptian authorities that Kareem, bloggers in general and prisoners of conscience over all, are not alone.”

Who is organizing the action? FreeKareem Campaign and the Committee to Protect Bloggers

Kareem Suleiman is an Egyptian blogger and law student who was arrested by Egyptian authorities on  Read more »

Tool: Skype

Name: Skype

Website: http://www.skype.com

What it is: Skype is a program which you can use to have chat, voice and video conversations with friends and contacts around the world.

Rating:

Read more »