Electronic Witness to Rights Abuses : Technology: A new project will give organizations around the world handheld cameras, computers and fax machines to record and possibly deter abuses.

The dramatic TV footage from Tian An Men Square gave the lie to the official Chinese government version of the incident--that the violent squashing of the 1989 protest never happened--and helped shape public opinion about that country’s regime.

By contrast, human rights advocates say, repressive regimes in remote countries have engaged in full-scale massacres that have scored scarcely a bleep on the agenda of public concern.

The reason: no “visuals” for TV.

“I’ve been going to TV journalists for years about human rights stories, and the problem has always been the same,” said Mary Daly, who formerly was communications director for Amnesty International USA and now works as a consultant for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “The human rights story is dramatic and compelling--but no pictures, no TV.”

Now, to document human rights abuses for the video age, the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has launched an ambitious project to put what the group calls the “weapons of mass communication”--handheld TV cameras, computers and fax machines--into the hands of human rights groups around the world.

The camera equipment will be used to create videotaped evidence of human rights abuses. The computers and fax machines--which were used by both the Chinese students in Tian An Men Square and the opponents of last year’s failed Soviet coup--will allow groups to communicate among themselves and to get their story out to the world.

The creators of the project, which is titled Witness, hope that some of the footage they shoot will be aired on television, both in the United States and abroad.

“There are many serious human rights violations in the world today that are not being recorded at all, or that are recorded in written reports and statistics that people can’t relate to,” Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee, said in an interview. “In the past few years, many new indigenous human rights groups have grown up in countries in Africa, South America and other regions. These groups operate in isolation and are subject to harassment. If we can document the abuses on video, it will bring the stories to life and, hopefully, mobilize public opinion in the world to say, ‘Wait a minute, this is something we ought to be doing something about.’ ”

At the same time, Posner believes, putting the video equipment in the hands of human rights activists might also be a deterrent to governments that engage in abuse. “Governments spend large sums of money with public relations firms in this country to promote their image in Washington, D.C. (for financial aid). No government is going to want to be the subject of a video that shows their policemen beating people up in the streets.

“There are many countries where there is no Viznews (the international TV wire service) and the networks haven’t had a reporter in years,” Posner added. “We hope that we can be a prod to international coverage, whether the networks air our footage or whether they take a look at it and decide there’s a story to be done there (by their own correspondents).” Posner said that the Lawyers Committee, working with an advisory group, plans to send out applications this summer to human rights groups around the world. Although the group would consider an application for equipment from an American group, he said, the emphasis will be on documenting international human rights abuses, from torture to political assassinations, in countries where video cameras and fax machines are a rare commodity.

Verification of the footage is likely to be one issue raised by the TV networks as the Witness project begins to yield video footage in the coming months.

Betsy West, the senior producer on ABC’s “PrimeTime Live,” welcomed the project but said that the networks would have to find ways to verify the footage on a case-by-case basis.

“The Lawyers Committee is a very credible group, and I think this project is a very good idea,” West said. “So often, there is a problem coming up with footage that goes beyond a written report on human rights. But we’ll still have to find ways to verify the footage ourselves.”

In a recent “PrimeTime Live” report alleging beatings, forced abortions and other human rights abuses by the Chinese government against the people of Tibet, West said, ABC News sent in producers (posing as tourists and carrying an undercover camera) after being denied entry as journalists. Some of the most dramatic shots in the piece--showing Tibetan monks being beaten by Chinese policemen--was shot not by ABC but by a monk who secretly recorded the incident. The footage, which was smuggled out of Tibet, was provided to “PrimeTime Live” by a Tibetan organization in the United States. The incident with the monks was verified by a number of eyewitnesses, including one interviewed by “PrimeTime Live,” and by other accounts at the time.

While the ABC newsmagazine spent the time and resources to verify the footage, the network nightly newscasts were embarrassed several years ago when they aired footage that was erroneously identified as being from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the former U.S.S.R.

“The nightly newscasts are going to have to be especially careful with footage from outside sources,” West said. “The reality of life in the late 20th Century is that there will be a lot of footage from a lot of sources. The camera can lie--but, at the same time, video has a way of telling the truth that can be more compelling than any written report.”

Posner, who noted that he already gets calls from the networks about footage they receive from other sources, said that the Lawyers Committee will be working with already established human rights groups in the Witness project. The group, he said, also will use some of the methods of independent verification--for example, seeking other eyewitness accounts--that the Lawyers Committee uses now to corroborate information in its written reports on abuses in foreign countries.

The Witness project was developed by the Lawyers Committee, musician Peter Gabriel and the Reebok Foundation. Gabriel, who has been active in supporting Amnesty International, said at a press conference announcing Witness that he had been frustrated with the difficulty of documenting specific abuses.

Mira Nair, the director of “Mississippi Masala”; Jonathan Demme, director of “The Silence of the Lambs,” and other directors also have endorsed the Witness project. Demme has said that he will be involved in helping to create an instructional video for groups who receive the equipment, not only in terms of using the equipment but also dealing with issues like safety and journalistic techniques that will make the video credible to news organizations.

The Reebok Foundation has given start-up funding of $150,000 to the Witness project. Reebok Chairman Paul Fireman said in an interview that the shoe manufacturing company was committed to continued financial support and that he intends to go “CEO to CEO” to the heads of corporations that manufacture cameras, computers and faxes to ask them to donate equipment.

Polaroid already has committed to donating equipment, and Fireman said he expects other corporations to join Polaroid in the coming months.

Although getting footage on TV likely will be the most dramatic result of the Witness project, Posner said that fax machines also were an important tool for human rights advocates.

“The worst cases of political torture occur within the first 48 hours of an arrest,” Posner said. “We have already seen instances where sending out faxes has generated a prompt international response that helped stop abuse” in the critical first hours.