Our criteria for accepting, publishing, or sharing submissions

 

Our goal is to support human rights defenders by recording and sharing audio accounts narrated by them. We believe that, by doing so, we can ultimately help human rights defenders be more successful in their work and safer. We are in strong alignment and agreement with the goals and activities of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. We are committed to human rights for all.

 

We believe that the amazing contributions of human rights defenders are often invisible or misunderstood by many people in their societies and that they are often unfairly maligned by the powerful.

 

We are seeking submissions from people who peacefully defend rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by the Core International Instruments of Human Rights. "Human rights defenders must accept the universality of human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A person cannot deny some human rights and yet claim to be a human rights defender because he or she is an advocate for others. For example, it would not be acceptable to defend the human rights of men but to deny that women have equal rights" [Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations by its resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948. See Fact Sheet No. 2, The International Bill of Human Rights (Rev.1).]. We accept submissions from people defending rights whether or not they are "at risk" or "under threat".

 

When a participant submits an audio recording, it is not available publicly at first. It needs to be vetted and then published by the project managers.

 

We hope to publish and circulate the vast majority of submissions that we receive. However, we reserve the right to not publish any submission for any reason, at our own discretion. Stated another way, submitting an audio recording through this project does not guarantee that it will be published. Some of the reasons we may choose not to publish a story, for example, include: that it creates risk or danger for anyone, including the person submitting it, in our judgement; that it is vulgar or inappropriate; that we have reason to believe it is untrue and/or submitted with the intention to deceive of cause mischief; that it mentions other people's names inappropriately or without their prior knowledge or permission; or that it is inconsistent with a full understanding of human rights as defined by the Core International Instruments of Human Rights.