The Benetech Initiative, a Silicon Valley nonprofit, released The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, an open source technology tool designed to assist human rights organizations in collecting, safeguarding, organizing and disseminating information about human rights abuses.

Currently, much of the violation and abuse information gathered by grassroots human rights groups is lost to confiscation, destruction, or neglect, making it difficult or impossible for prosecutors, truth commissions and others to use the information as evidence to hold the perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable for many of their crimes. The Martus software enables grassroots NGOs to securely store their records on off-site servers with easy-to-use software, preserving crucial evidence for research, investigation and prosecutions.

The software was designed in consultation with human rights groups and experts worldwide, including Dr. Patrick Ball of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world's leading human rights statisticians and Senior Advisor to the project. Beta testing took place in Guatemala, Russia, Sri Lanka and the US.

Future applications of the Martus software for social justice groups include monitoring other issues like violence against women, human trafficking, environmental destruction and hate crimes. The software and its source code are available for download at http://www.martus.org. >from *New software provides secure worldwide tracking and documentation of human rights abuses*. january 15, 2003

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imago
> human rights activity file