Standard Formats And Micro Thesauri Huridocs

Documenting Human Rights Violations

Content:

Events and indicators

Acts and events

One person, many roles

Standard formats

Micro-thesauri

Who did what to whom?

WinEvsys relational database

Monitoring Human Rights Violations

Two approaches to monitoring:

“ Violations” approach

“ Progressive realisation” approach

Two methodologies in monitoring:

Events-based methodologies (acts and events)

Indicators-based methodologies

WinEvsys: violations approach, events-based methodology

Events Methodology Basic Elements of a human rights violations case VICTIM ACT PERPETRATOR

BUT IT IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS THAT!!! Sometimes, a single act can affect many victims Or several acts can be committed against a single victim ARREST MASSACRE TORTURE EXECUTION

COMMON ERROR: VICTIM ACT PERPETRATOR PICKING OUT A SINGLE ACT AND EQUATING IT TO A SINGLE EVENT EVENT

For instance, it has been a common error to pick out only the gravest kind of violation for recording SUCH ERRORS ARE DUE TO THE POOR DESIGN OF DATA ENTRY FORMS (ONLY SPACE FOR ONE ACT, ONE VICTIM, ONE PERPETRATOR) SOLUTION: Separate the recording of information on events and acts ARREST TORTURE EXECUTION

A single action, usually involving force, which is committed by an individual or group against another (act of commission ). T he non-performance of an expected or required movement or action (act of omission). An act is not necessarily a violation! (example: arrest ACT Something that happens, with a beginning and an end, and which progresses until its logical conclusion. An event can contain a single act, a series of related acts, or a number of related acts happening together. For an event to be relevant, least one act should be a human rights violation. EVENT

Persons and roles

Four basic roles: victim, perpetrator, source, intervening party

One person can have several roles: in different events, or even same event.

Example:

Police arrests and tortures Ramon. His lawyer, Edgar,

intervenes on his behalf. Police threatens Edgar. Edgar

provides information against police to human rights

organisation. Organisation makes public report. Police attacks

Edgar’s family.

ARREST OF DESACULA ET AL. Edgar Desacula was arrested together with Ramon Aguilar by members of the Pasay City Police Force at Roxas Boulevard at about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of November 18, 1987. Desacula and Aguilar were brought to the police headquarters for questioning. Aguilar was immediately released. Desacula was passed to operatives of the Intelligence and Special Operations Group (ISOG) who conducted tactical interrogation and subjected Desacula to torture. Desacula was later charged with “Violation of Presidential Decree 1866 (Illegal Possession of Firearm in Furtherance of Rebellion)”. Desacula has remained in detention. Desacula, 23, single, and Aguilar, 26, married, both worked in the garment factory GenTex. Edna Aguilar, wife of Ramon Aguilar, supplied information regarding the arrest. She also gave personal details of Desacula and Aguilar. She had also sought the help of Atty Ignacio, who provided legal assistance to both victims.

ARREST OF DESACULA ET AL. Edgar Desacula was arrested together with Ramon Aguilar by members of the Pasay City Police Force at Roxas Boulevard at about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of November 18, 1987. Desacula and Aguilar were brought to the police headquarters for questioning. Aguilar was immediately released. Desacula was passed to operatives of the Intelligence and Special Operations Group (ISOG) who conducted tactical interrogation and subjected Desacula to torture . Desacula was later charged with “Violation of Presidential Decree 1866 (Illegal Possession of Firearm in Furtherance of Rebellion)”. Desacula has remained in detention . Desacula, 23, single, and Aguilar, 26, married, both worked in the garment factory GenTex. Edna Aguilar, wife of Ramon Aguilar, supplied information regarding the arrest. She also gave personal details of Desacula and Aguilar. She had also sought the help of Atty Ignacio, who provided legal assistance to both victims.

ARREST OF DESACULA ET AL. Edgar Desacula was arrested together with Ramon Aguilar by members of the Pasay City Police Force at Roxas Boulevard at about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of November 18, 1987. Desacula and Aguilar were brought to the police headquarters for questioning. Aguilar was immediately released. Desacula was passed to operatives of the Intelligence and Special Operations Group (ISOG) who conducted tactical interrogation and subjected Desacula to torture . Desacula was later charged with “Violation of Presidential Decree 1866 (Illegal Possession of Firearm in Furtherance of Rebellion)”. Desacula has remained in detention . Desacula, 23, single, and Aguilar, 26, married, both worked in the garment factory GenTex. Edna Aguilar , wife of Ramon Aguilar, supplied information regarding the arrest. She also gave personal details of Desacula and Aguilar. She had also sought the help of Atty Ignacio , who provided legal assistance to both victims.

Who did what to whom? Intelligence Arrest Police Detention Arrest Torture Edgar Desacula Ramon Aguilar Arrest of Desacula et al. Edna Aguilar Ignacio P P P P V V V V S IP IP Session 4

Structured text

Person

Name: Edgar Desacula

Age: 23

Civil status: single

Town: Pasay

Employer: GenTex

…

Act

Act: torture

Victim: Edgar Desacula

Perpetrator: ISOG

Date act: 18.11.1897

… .

Structured VS Free text

Easy to search, compare, count, identify patterns and trends, count, make statistics

Possible import into a database

Easy to input data, writing skills not important skills

You cannot translate everything into fields and labels.

People relate well to narrative accounts, structured data is cold.

With free text you can convey the cumulative effects of several violations on a person.

Standard formats Record 1 Field: text Field: yes or no Field: multiple choice Field: controlled vocabulary Field: number Field: date File

Lets make some standard formats…

Person format

Field 1

Field 2

Act format:

Field 1:

Field 2:

HURIDOCS Standard Formats Main Formats 1. Event Format 2. Person Format Link Formats: 1. Act Format 2. Involvement Format 3. Information Format 4. Intervention Format 5. Chain of Event Format 6. Biographic Details Format 7. Additional Details Format

EVENT FORMAT 101 Event Record Number 102 Event Title 111 Geographical Term 112 Local Geographical Area 113 Initial Date 114 Final Date 115 Event Description 116 Impact of Event 150 Remarks 151 Violation Status 152 Violation index 153 Rights Affected 154 HURIDOCS Index 155 Local Index 160 Date received 161 Date of Entry 162 Entered by 163 Project Title 164 Confidentiality 165 Comments 166 Supporting Documents 167 Files 168 Record Grouping 170 Date updated 171 Updated by 172 Monitoring status EXAMPLE OF A FORMAT

EXAMPLE OF A COMPLETED FORMAT

EVENT FORMAT

101 Event Record Number 000001

102 Event Title Desacula et al Arrest

111 Geographical Term Philippines

112 Local Geographical Area National Capital Region [00040101000]

113 Initial Date 18 November 1987

114 Final Date

115 Event Description Edgar Desacula was arrested together with Ramon Aguilar by members of the Pasay City Police Force at Roxas Boulevard at about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of 18 November1987.

When brought to the police headquarters, they were passed to the Intelligence and Special Operations Group (ISOG.) which conducted tactical interrogation and subjected Desacula to torture.

116 Impact of Event 2 victims

150 Remarks

151 Violation Status Confirmed

152 Violation Index Arbitrary / unlawful action

153 Rights Affected Liberty / Freedom from torture

154 HURIDOCS Index Detention / Torture

155 Local Index

160 Date Received 19871119

Sources of error when entering data into standard formats

Source 1: spelling mistakes or multiple spellings

Source 2: indiscriminate use of synonyms, overlapping or related concepts

Result: unreliable retrieval and searching

How to eliminate errors? By using controlled vocabularies, or micro-thesauri

HURIDOCS task force produced 48 micro-thesauri relevant for human rights work

TYPES OF ACTS 01 Violations of the right to life 0101 Deliberate killings of specific individuals 010101 Summary execution 010102 Extra-judicial execution outside any legal proceedings 010103 Legal execution (capital punishment) 010104 Politically-motivated killing by non-state agent(s) 010105 Murder (deliberate killing which ought to be seen as a common criminal act) 01010501 Dowry death 01010502 Bride burning 01010503 Death as part of a ritual 01010504 Rape-slay 01010505 Death in snuff films 0102 Killings carried out against a person with specific characteristics 010201 Infanticide 010202 Feticide 010203 Parricide 0103 Killings in the context of conflict 010301 Killing between combatants 010302 Deliberate killing of a non-combatant 010303 Death of a non-combatant in a crossfire 0104 Death in a massacre or mass killing 0105 Indiscriminate/random killings 010501 Killing in demonstrations, crowd control, and similar events 010502 Killing in indiscriminate attacks such as bombing 010503 Death as a result of being caught in a crossfire, such as in police operations MICRO-THESAURI 4

METHODS OF VIOLENCE 01 Methods of deprivation of life 0101 Shooting 0102 Beating 0103 Attack with knife and/or other sharp instrument 0104 Asphyxiation 0105 Burning 0106 Bombing 0107 Starvation 0108 Poisoning 0109 Medical experimentation 02 Methods of imprisonment, restriction of movement 0201 Held in a regular detention place 0202 Held in a regular prison 0203 Held in a military camp 0204 Held in a psychiatric institution 0205 Held in a labour, concentration or extermination camp 0206 Held in an government or military facility without any legal authorisation 0207 Held in a private place, such as in the case of slavery, prostitution 0208 Held in a prisoner of war camp 03 Methods of violence against a person (such as torture) 0301 Beating 030101 Slapping, kicking or punching 030102 Blows with rifle butts, whips, straps, heavy sticks 030103 “Telefono” 030104 “Falanga” MICRO-THESAURI 5

OCCUPATIONS 01 Legislators, senior officials and managers 0101 Legislators and senior officials 010101 Legislators 010102 Senior government officials 010103 Traditional chiefs and heads of villages 010104 Senior officials of special-interest organisations 01010401 Senior officials of political party organisations 01010402 Senior officials of economic-interest organisations 01010403 Senior officials of humanitarian organisations 0102 Corporate managers 010201 Directors and chief executives 010202 Production and operations department managers 010203 Other department managers 0103 General managers 02 Professionals 0201 Physical, mathematical and engineering science professionals 020101 Physicists, chemists and related professionals 020102 Mathematicians, statisticians and related professionals 020103 Computing professionals 020104 Architects, engineers and related professionals Etc. CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES

GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS 01 Africa 0101 Central Africa 010117 Burundi 010118 Cameroon 010120 Central African Republic 010121 Chad 010123 Congo 010126 Equatorial Guinea 010128 Gabon 010150 Rwanda 010153 Sao Tome and Principe 010165 Zaire 010200 East Africa 010224 Djibouti 010227 Ethiopia 010234 Kenya 010257 Somalia 010259 Sudan 010263 Uganda 010264 Tanzania, United Republic of 010281 Eritrea Etc. CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES

Representing violations: linear table (simple case) Who did what to whom? Easy to say in this case… Soldier X Jim Assault Assault of Jim Perpetrator Victim Act Event

Linear table: complex cases Who did what to whom? Not so easy anymore… Etc Coup attempt Edna Aguilar - Police - Intelligence - Edgar Desacula - Ramon Aguilar - Arrest - Killing - Torture Arrest of Desacula et al. Source Perpetrators Victims Acts Event

How are the formats related? Person Event Act (victim) Information (source) Intervention (intervening party) Involvement (perpetrator) Additional details Chain of events Biographic details Add. info Link Entity

WinEvsys: a relational model

1. Revised Events Standard Formats, by Dueck, Guzman and Verstappen. Geneva: 2000 2. HURIDOCS Micro-Thesauri, by Dueck, Guzman and Verstappen. Geneva: 2000 3. WinEvsys (computer application of the formats and microthesauri) HURIDOCS TOOLS FOR MONITORING EVENTS:

For more information: HURIDOCS 48 ch. du Grand-Montfleury 1290 Versoix, Switzerland Tel. +41 22 755 5252 Fax +41 22 755 5260 e-mail: huridocs@comlink.org Or visit our website: www.huridocs.org Contact us at: