Syrian Archive is a Syrian-led project that aims to support human rights investigators, advocates, media reporters, and journalists in their efforts to document human rights violations in Syria through developing new open source tools as well as providing a transparent and replicable methodology for collecting, preserving, verifying, and investigating visual documentation. The organization, which was founded in 2014, believes that visual documentation of human rights violations that is transparent, detailed, and reliable is critical for improving accountability and can positively contribute to post- conflict reconstruction and stability. Making sure verified content is publicly available and accessible for journalists, human rights defenders, and lawyers is equally important. Such documentation can humanize victims, reduce the space for dispute over numbers killed, help societies understand the true human costs of war, and support truth and reconciliation efforts.

Gaining physical access to be able to investigate and report on human rights violations in Syria is very limited and dangerous for independent journalists, international news agencies, UN investigation bodies, and international human rights organizations. This is the main reason Syrian Archive and other documentation groups depend on verified user-generated content to assist in criminal case building as well as human rights research.

One of the ways this is done is through releasing all software developed publicly in free and open-source formats. This is done both to ensure trust is built and maintained between the Syrian Archive and its partners and collaborators, as well as to allow software to be reused and customized by other groups outside of this project. Technical integration with existing open-source investigative tools ensure that work is not duplicated.

Syrian Archive works in collaboration with other archival groups, as well as lawyers and journalists, to develop its methodology, and with other technologists to develop the open source tools we are using.

Once content has been processed, verified, and analyzed, it is then reviewed for accuracy. In the event of a discrepancy, content is fed back into the digital evidence workflow for further verification. If content is deemed accurate, it moves to the publishing stage of the digital evidence workflow. Regular reports on verified visual content ensure that the feedback loop between the Syrian Archive and sources who filmed the videos is closed. This allows Syrian Archive to add value to the visual content being preserved, verified, and analyzed immediately for advocacy purposes and later on for accountability and justice purposes.

Through collecting, verifying, preserving, and investigating visual documentation of human rights violations in Syria, the Syrian Archive aims to preserve data as a digital memory, to establish a verified database of human rights violations, and to act as an evidence tool for legally implementing justice and accountability as concept and practice in Syria.

Links: https://syrianarchive.org

Syrian Archive is a Syrian-led and initiated collective of human rights activists dedicated to curating visual documentation relating to human rights violations and other crimes committed by all sides during the conflict in Syria. Its goal is to create an evidence-based tool for reporting, advocacy, and accountability purposes.