a short while ago, right after the revolution in my country Egypt ignited, police officers started returning to their posts after they've been ordered to withdraw - in an attempt to punish people with chaos. soon after, a viral video of a police officer talking to his soldier started circulating on YouTube. The officer used a very offensive and derogatory tone when referring to the public. the video was apparently shot on a very cheap phone camera, and somehow this officer's abuse was broadcasted from a remote location onto the social media. to my surprise, the government punished that officer and he was banished to a lowly post. an unfit punishment? maybe, but mind you, the police in Egypt had God-like powers, they could detain, beat, sexually abuse or even murder anyone with no consequences. but a lousy camera on a cheap phone was able to bring about public justice. i guess my point is and i agree with everyone, that exposure and the internet is definitely a game changer. many similar incidents has happened since then, for example the release of prisoners who receive unconstitutional or no proper trials.

so long as the internet is free, there is hope yet! but how do we guarantee the internet never falls under the censorship of the state?

i believe the most important innovation should be a non-centralized internet service. an internet that a government cannot impose censorship on.

A peer to peer internet service that does not rely on government controlled routers to function. i believe there is room for innovation there!

Well, I want to mention a page of history here, during 1971 a liberation war was held between two south east Asian country Bangladesh and Pakistan, However, a plenty of people including young to old were murdered, for about 30 thousands young women were raped, Bangladesh got their independent 16th December,1971, Today is 14th December 2011, High and innovative technology are revolving all around this country, but as ill luck would have it, still the people of this country are running around for the proper punishment for the traitor after the law enforcement community. they still don't know when they get their truth order for the crime of 1971.

The thing is that, I myself believe, technology can change the way we are living but it can't change the human we are, and also human character is like a crab character. Technology silent here. Around all over the world, in many countries people are suffering form unlawful decision maker, not for technology. And not only technology but also human beings should grow up a innovative mind with the growth of innovative technology.

Writing here from Iran where I am currently based, makes the urgency of this topic all the more real. It has taken me more than an hour just to post here, because of internet restrictions.

I think we need to start by stop looking at repressive states and the people functioning in them as monolithic wholes. To send "help" of any nature, technological or otherwise, we need to understand the context, even the technological context. Do people use facebook more or email? How prevalent are cell phones? smart phones? What kind of crackdowns is the government more likely to impose most of the time? ad infinitum.

We can also see cases in which international pressure has worked, vs. cases where it hasn't. For instance, in Iran, the case of a woman sentenced to stoning because of adultery received so much international attention that the sentence was never carried out. She was in every newspaper and online magazine I read those weeks. On the other hand, a journalist was sentenced to the very same punishment, without a word in Western press. The sentence was carried out swiftly and with no further arguments. I am not implying that the degree of the sentence is always linearly proportional to the attention it receives. Unfortunately, things are not always that simple. But wide international recognition, and demand for accountability by respected international bodies IS one part of the equation.

If we were to envision a functioning technological system, it would be one in which the real world and the virtual world are strongly interconnected. There must be strong links between the prisoners and their loved ones, both their immediate families (who are always in danger of being arrested themselves) and second, third, etc links as well, so that each link can compensate for the previous one in the case it is silenced. Those who are out of prison serve as the voices of those who are inside. Unless there are REAL faces put forth via this technology, it will never move any observers, both nationally and internationally. We need to design a system that uses the links of prisoners outside prison to make their cases heard, to present their story, to demand answers, etc and to serve as a repository of repression for those states unwilling to take any responsibility for their own missing citizens.

The trick here is to make these stories accountable too. To keep strangers from wandering in the system and fabricating false cases. I can think of a number of solutions for this too - I will save it for another post.

This is a serious problem especially in developing countries like Egypt where the absence of human rights and principles leaves a great pace for the government apparatus to torture innocent people using violence and unjustified laws. The challenge proposed by openIDEO is a critical one indeed and in response to overcoming it technology can be used in some innovative ways. Nonprofits advocating for human rights can pass a policy to allow detainees use internet technology to communicate with their beloved ones and keep them informed about their status. A detailed policy agenda can be proposed on how technology can be legitimized for adequate use by arrested cases taking into considerations security issues pertained to managing terrorism and criminal threats. on the other hand, sharing like an updated database of prisoners for public access could resolve a lot of anxiety caused to their families. This is only a tentative thought but I do believe that an extensive brainstorming session can elicit a lot of valuable insights about how can we solve this challenge and improve the quality of human's life.
Thanks a lot for raising the issue and good luck in all your endeavors!
Nashwa Ghoneim.

The talentuous photographer Fernando Moleres realized a work about this topic. On his pictures we can clearly see the despair and the distress of these men who have been put in jail because they had stolen an apple or for reasons they did not even know. Most of them were waiting there for years before their trial if not dead before. The photographer confides us that he paid the caution for one of his model to make him free. The caution was 45 dollars.
It is a sad fantastic work Fernando Moreles realized with a lot of courage in Sierra Leone and Soudan, entittled "African children in jail"; work exhibited at VISA POUR L'IMAGE photojournalism festival hapenning in Perpignan every year in September for the last 23 years.

This work makes me realize how much low-income countries suffer from endless administrative and bureaucratic red tape. It is unconceivable that a man is deprived of his rights for so long without any explanation or valid reason in so many cases. We, as rich occidental countries should organize ourselves to come and relieve local courts and judges in their administrative tasks at least. I think it should be possible for a French law student, to do a trainee as a Sierra Leone court recorder for instance; which is not the case right now. Also, it would be great if some NGO could go and train local people to deal with this. They could receive a commission based on the number of trial successfully completed for instance; commission paid on the caution.
Also, most of the families often do not know that their son/father has been put in jail. I am certain we can use our technologies to help low-income countries to create a more complete and updated prisoner database; and use this database to contact families and ask if they want to pay for the caution for instance.

1-Firstly we need to build a communication network with making confidentiality, so that the information of detainee can bring out to facilitator. Then, we can make careful plan to make it meaningful according to the situation.
2- It happens accidentally, so we should educate to law-implementing groups, so that this types of detention can be reduced.
3- We should establish secret and confidential information cell into such organization, so that we can get information, but we should be aware about the confidentiality of the informants.
 Then only, we take proper action to reduce such cases of detention.

  

First of all, Amina's story is an extremely good example for this challenge and secondly, I could not help tearing as I listened to the poem she wrote for her husband. It reveals much pain, unspoken or worst still, have not been heard enough.

I want to say that in our time, high-technology has made tremendous strides. However, if we have the tools but do not want to use it the right way, do you think we would accomplish the results we want? Similarly, we have high-technology in place but what we need to look into is; who are the people manipulating the high-technology or controlling it? For instance if a loved one is detained, and has GPS-Global Positioning System in his/her phone to track their whereabouts, what good would it be, if authorities confiscated it which is often the case.

I think high-technology can be extremely useful however, it seems to me that what might make a difference is the modification of rules and regulations where detention is concerned meaning a set of rules that law officials should abide by so that family members of loved ones such as Amina, should not have to constantly wonder if her husband is dead or alive.

Arbitrary detention is contextual to the prevalent laws of the concerned Nation. Secret detention, as the word suggests is not indisputable as the family / relatives of the subject , as I hope, would not be immediately knowledgeable of the where abouts. I see various challenges (hence opportunities to work upon) here :

- confirmation that the missing subject is under secret detention
- details regarding the act, including present where abouts / reason for the same
- the possible action for rescue
- facilitation regarding the rescue
- ensuring that the same does not happen again in future

Now, when I refer to all of the above points, I see a common factor through out - a missing cyclic communication. This now seems like a typical systems project because of the incremental parameters. The possible solution(s) could include options like - designing a ' Human Positioning System' (like the GPS) i.e communication to the Sunject, to inventing an ultrasonic mode of distant human to human communication (like the Bats) i.e communication from the Subject :)

unlawful detentions can just be a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Prevention is a good start.

We can create solutions that will educate, prepare and connect others to this topic.

I know that I am missing the concepting phase by some time, but how about using google adwords to campaign for missing people.
Put up a small mini-site of submitting confidential information or contact with some reward. Then promote it with google adwords with something like: X went missing on this date, click here if you know anything.
Google adwords is a relatively cheap way to reach many people and in different languages. Hopefully through this maybe one of the wardens or somebody who has some valuable information can approach confidentially.

Gideon Simons

As a general comment on the challenge some may find Noam Chomsky's delivery of the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture interesting listening (or reading). Entitled - Revolutionary Pacifism: Choices and Prospects there will be links to both audio (here - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/ ) and transcript (here - http://sydneypeaceblog.org/2011/11/03/2011-city-of-sydney-peace-prize-lecture-by-prof-noam-chomsky/ )
It's a bit late for the challenge but may be interesting for later consumption.

Took me a while to wrap my head around this one. Technology is limited and restricted in the areas where this type of thing happens. My immediate first thought is to get other countries involved and rally support through social networks. America was guilty of this type of behavior until recent and I'm not sure what impact people rallying against it had on the changes that have come in terms of defense. Yes the practices appeared unpopular but were also justified as necessary.

The brief is effective in giving us all the information we need to lead us toward scratching our heads vigorously to find a solution. This will certainly be a challenge worthy of a strong collaborative effort.

This is a tough one. One of the immediate problems with trying to integrate technology into this is obvious, many of the areas that suffer from this sort of behavior aren't really connected to technology. Addressing the people being detained is going to be harder than addressing those who detain, to some extent. If you start with the assumption that a good percentage of the detainments are performed by authorities, which will in some way be registered, then you can go about instrumenting their facilities, for starters. Cells that keep count of the moving bodies in them would be relatively cheap, which could require the authorities to register each detainee, and the registration would need to state a reason. If you've got an international governing body to keep a watchful eye on these numbers, you can probably account for some of the problem.

Of course, you've got the issue of secretive facilities for holding and other things. At that point you'd need to GPS track vehicles. a good pattern recognition algorithm could likely watch for behaviors and locations, alerting the authorities to potential problem actions. All this assumes first that you have the ability to implement a technology solution, and hence you're dealing with governing bodies. It comes down to the sad fact that there aren't enough people to monitor everything. Fortunately, if you can wire up the facilities and assets, you can start to learn a lot about what people are doing. Body counting motion detectors, PCs, and GPS trackers are cheap and pretty accurate with the right implementation.

Solution #1
Create a website to help those families or friends through the process of reclaiming the person(s) being illegally held against international law. A content rich site, highly networked with contacts in government agencies (U.N.), press/media, pro bono legal help, and a platform for getting the news out on a viral scale (social media , etc.). Make it easy to submit the case for review. Lets be honest, publicity and exposure is key to recovering individuals in captivity. Make it accessible by all forms of digital device.

Solution #2
Get creative with nanotechnology and find a way to create a form of communication undetectable/disguised to blend in with the body. Find a way to make it affordable and highly distributable (that is a pretty tough one, but I know it can be done).

The most important thing is to not to make anybody the enemy. The authorities who detain people, have a reason to do so. We need to make the authorities our partner. Interaction with the authorities should not only be via legal means. We should hold informal meetings and understand what kind of document / proof they need to free or at least charge the detainees in a court of law. We should be an interface between the authorities and the detainee families, helping them communicate. Taking the route of protest or litigation will only make authorities get defensive about their stand.