NEW SOFTWARE PROVIDES SECURE WORLDWIDE TRACKING AND DOCUMENTATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

The Benetech Initiative, a Silicon Valley nonprofit, has announced the release of The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, an open source technology tool designed to assist human rights organisations in collecting, safeguarding, organising 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.