Seeing Human Rights: Video Activism as a Proxy Profession by Sandra Ristovska

Author:Sandra Ristovska [Ristovska, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Advocacy, human rights, Art & Politics, activism; video; images; visual evidence; verification; proxy profession; human rights; journalism; law; advocacy; politics; policy; new institutionalism; professionalization; open source investigation; witnessing; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; WITNESS; Syrian Archive; Forensic Architecture, art, Political Process, political science
ISBN: 9780262542531
Google: nOQ2EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2021-08-03T00:25:34.266552+00:00

This case suggests that the assumed sensory authority of video—its portrayal of the emotional layers of the war experiences—also makes it an exceptionally persuasive device. This belief lingers in the prosecutors’ understanding of why video is more effective than narration.

The persuasive power of video was often invoked during the presentation of evidence at the ICTY’s trials. In the trial against Radovan Karadžić, the former president of Republika Srpska (in Bosnia and Herzegovina), the prosecution questioned a witness after showing a video about the shelling of the Markale market in Sarajevo.

MR. GAYNOR:  I’d now like to move to a video which has already been admitted in evidence as P1450, and I’ll be playing some extracts from that. Initially, I’d like to play the first minute of this video, please.

[Video clip played.]

MR. GAYNOR:  We stopped at 48 seconds.

Q:  Mr. Besic, it’s been repeatedly asserted in this court that many of the bodies at the Markale I and Markale II incidents were brought from the front-line, that the bodies were already dead. I want to ask you if you can comment on that assertion.

A:  It’s difficult to comment. We can see, with our own eyes, everything that happened. All sorts of stories circulated, that bodies were brought there and planted there. However, we’ve seen what’s going on. If dead bodies had been brought here, then the wounded people here would not be acting this way. You see the man without his lower leg. If you look at the other photographs and recordings, you will see parts of extremities. There were all sorts of stories and guesses, but the facts are here.48

The video clip used here starts with a wide shot of dead and injured bodies on the street. As cars pass by, people move the bodies to the side of the market. Sirens and painful screaming accompany the sights of blood and death. The camera situates the viewer in the midst of the incident. Although the video does not show actual evidence of who killed the people or how the bodies appeared there, the presumed link between the shelling attack and the immediate panic on the street is what provided this video grounds for evidentiary submission in Karadžić’s trial. The witness’s response to this footage reiterated the importance of seeing. Screening the video and subsequently examining the witness implied the importance of visual persuasion in court. The video was framed as an undeniable testament to the horrors in Sarajevo, capable of dismissing any false allegations.

Facilitated by the relatively flexible rules of evidence—to provide background and setting for crimes in countries far away from the courtroom in The Hague—the prosecution screened many videos as contextual evidence. In the case against Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Serbia, for example, the prosecution showed excerpts from a two-hour video depicting executions committed by the paramilitary unit Scorpions, which were filmed by a Scorpions member with a hand-held camera. The complete video features three key scenes. In the first, a Serbian Orthodox priest sings a prayer and gives blessings to Scorpions (figure 4.

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