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Late one evening last October, three political activists were seized
by police in a Moscow street. They were thrown into jail, beaten and asked
to confess to the murder of two policemen. The next day, their families
discovered where they were and contacted a colleague with access to an electronic
mail network. He logged on, posted details of what had happened on a number
of international bulletin boards – and gave the phone number of the police
station.

‘The head of police was dumbfounded when the first call came in from
Japan,’ says Geoff Sears, of the Institute for Global Communications in
San Francisco. ‘Then they got a steady stream of calls.’ The activists were
released within three days and the charges dropped.

In other countries, where dissidents have a tendency to disappear, such
a quick response can save lives, says Mary Gray of the AAAS Science and
Human Rights Program. ‘If the police or the army know they’ve been found
out, they realise they might not get away with it.’

Information is the most powerful tool available to the human rights
movement. Today’s electronic communications networks and computer databases
are giving human rights groups the means to keep track of people at risk
and trace those who violate people’s rights. Statistical analysis of large
amounts of data can reveal patterns of abuse that reflect government policies
or the actions of individuals.

‘We are in the business of putting the tools that are so useful to science
and business to work in the service of human rights,’ says Herbert Spirer,
chairman of the American Statistical Association’s committee on human rights.

Electronic mail systems are ideal for collecting information on abuses
within hours or even minutes and informing a large number of people around
the world. Amnesty International communicates on PeaceNet, a non-profitmaking
network run by Sears’s organisation. The network enables Amnesty to alert
its Urgent Action Network to cases like that of the three Russians. The
service is fast, cheap and not constrained by borders. ‘The informality
of the system means that it is quick and easy to stay in touch – even across
huge distances,’ says Sears. It allows information on abuses to be moved
outside the country to a place of safety.

Swift action on information received might save the lives of individuals.
But building up a systematic picture of a country’s human rights abuses
can later help in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

HURIDOCS, the Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems Network,
a global network of human rights groups, is trying to improve the quality
of information by drawing up standard formats for reporting abuses – supplying
details of the victim, the abuser and the type of crime. ‘If there is no
record of the crime or the perpetrator, there is no way to get justice
even after a government is overthrown,’ says Judith Dueck of HURIDOCS. ‘Abusers
operate with impunity when they remain faceless and nameless,’ she says.

Carefully compiled records can reveal patterns of abuses, often linked
with one army officer or a single police unit. ‘With large volumes of information,
you get insights it is impossible to get from case by case studies,’ says
Daniel Salcedo of the AAAS.

When the military government of El Salvador negotiated a peace accord
with the rebel FMLN guerrillas in 1992, one of the conditions was that a
Truth Commission should track down those responsible for the worst human
rights abuses during the 12 years of civil war. The international commission,
set up by the UN, was given six months to complete its inquiries.

With so little time, it was impossible to trace every victim and every
violator. In San Salvador, the Archbishop’s Human Rights Office concentrated
on building up enough evidence to pin down some of the worst violators of
human rights. They compiled a computer database of 40 000 cases of abuse.
At the same time, they drew up a ‘military map’, showing which officers
were posted where at any particular time. Cross-checking the details of
cases with the map of army postings, they found definite patterns of abuses
that corresponded to times when certain officers were in charge of particular
regions.

‘If you look case by case it is often difficult to pin the blame on
a particular officer. But if you see patterns of violations under the responsibility
of the same officer, it makes it harder for him to deny responsibility,’
says Salcedo.

The findings persuaded the government to clear out its top military
officers. ‘All the evidence was circumstantial – it would not be enough
to take to court,’ says Salcedo. ‘But it was enough to change the shape
of the military.’

Relying on electronic systems to store data and to communicate can have
drawbacks, however. ‘If the data get into the wrong hands they can be used
to trace informers,’ says Gray. ‘You can be fairly certain that some government
agencies routinely record electronic messages,’ says Sears. ‘But there is
some safety in the volume of traffic – and it is not difficult to encrypt
the messages with codes that are hard to break.