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Since early 2006, SHRP has been working with partner organizations to collect high-resolution
satellite imagery and develop other data to document or understand human rights violations.
A selection of this imagery (QuickBird and
Ikonos) and other data is provided below as Google Earth layers, one of a number of emerging geospatial visualization tools.
These layers were produced using the regionator
code made available by Google. In addition, Global Mapper
software complemented image processing done with ERDAS Imagine and
ENVI. Lastly,
ArcView GIS software was used throughout
the process.
Please note that all the below Google Earth layers require Google Earth Release 4 - BETA.
NGOs in Burma provided AAAS with information concerning attacks on civilians
in Karen State carried out by government forces in late 2006 and early 2007. AAAS staff reviewed these reports and compared them with high-resolution satellite images
to identify destruction of housing and infrastructure and construction of new military occupation camps.
Working with Amnesty International and the
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, AAAS documented
past attacks by the government-backed Janjaweed against civilians in Chad and
Darfur, Sudan, in 2005 and 2006, and is building methods for tracking current
attacks. Documenting past attacks has thus far relied on information from Amnesty
International and media sources to acquire archived and new satellite imagery
of attack areas. Tracking new attacks is done by monitoring media reports from
the region and plotting those reports, as possible, according to town and village
names..
AAAS worked with Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch to document the effects on
civilian populations in Lebanon caught in the crossfire of the July 2006 Israel-Hezbollah
conflict. AAAS obtained and analyzed high-resolution imagery of Lebanon from DigitalGlobe
and GeoEye. A separate analysis of Israel
was not possible since the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 1997 prohibits private companies from selling high-resolution
satellite imagery of locations in Israel at better than 2.5 meter resolution.
In May 2005, the government of Zimbabwe began Operation Murambatsvina (translated
alternately as Operation Restore Order or Drive Out Trash) to demolish homes and
businesses in what it claims to be illegal settlements and black market areas.
According to U.N. estimates, the homes of around 700,000 people were demolished
and the demolitions have affected at least 2.4 million people across Zimbabwe
through deprivation of housing, work, food, water, or education. AAAS worked with
Amnesty International and the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights to precisley locate image sets of destroyed settlements.
Contact
Us: SHRP welcomes user feedback on these layers and any additional information
or resources that users may want to provide about the events in question.
(page updated 09/25/2007)
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