WEBVTT 01:24.000 --> 01:28.000 We say that we have not used them. 01:41.000 --> 01:44.000 It could be a provocation. 01:55.000 --> 01:57.000 The yellow press is telling lies. 02:17.000 --> 02:26.000 WAR AGAINST LIES 02:55.000 --> 03:01.000 Eliot was looking after his daughter ONE August 21 when he was awakened by the cruelty of the images. 03:01.000 --> 03:07.000 There were hundreds of children among the more than thousand dead and the 3,000 wounded by the massacre. 03:07.000 --> 03:13.000 At dawn, two attacks struck the district of Ghouta, in the outskirts of Damascus. 03:13.000 --> 03:18.000 In that killing of civilians there were signs which showed the use of chemical weapons. 03:18.000 --> 03:24.000 Awestruck by the videos, Eliot made a new entry in his blog. 03:48.000 --> 03:53.000 Eliot Higgins is not a journalist; he has no military nor weapons training. 03:53.000 --> 03:56.000 He does not speak Arabic and has never been in a war zone. 03:56.000 --> 04:01.000 However, he is the person who best knows the weapons which are bleeding Syria to death. 04:01.000 --> 04:09.000 His blog, Brown Moses, which he opened as an escape route on losing his job, is a valuable archive documenting the conflict. 04:30.000 --> 04:35.000 We live in the era of the new technologies. The XX century connected us to the Internet 04:35.000 --> 04:38.000 and the XXI century has placed the global network in our pockets. 04:40.000 --> 04:47.000 With a Smartphone we can speak, write, photograph, record from anywhere 04:47.000 --> 04:54.000 and share that photo or video with millions of persons through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. 04:54.000 --> 05:00.000 An immense amount of information is accessible by anyone from the Internet 05:00.000 --> 05:07.000 and in conflicts such as the one which is tearing Syria apart can be transformed into the most precise magnifying glass in order to investigate the facts, 05:07.000 --> 05:10.000 if how and where to look are known. 05:47.000 --> 05:55.000 We have not used any type of chemical weapons at all in Ghouta nor in any other place in Syria. 06:19.000 --> 06:25.000 Eliot was looking for a response to two questions: Were internationally prohibited chemical weapons used? 06:25.000 --> 06:27.000 If so, who used them? 06:40.000 --> 06:44.000 With millimetre precision and taking into account the finest details, 06:44.000 --> 06:50.000 Eliot reviewed dozens of photos and videos the citizens had posted that day on the Internet 06:50.000 --> 06:54.000 and remembered a video he had seen two weeks previously 07:27.000 --> 07:30.000 However, he was not satisfied with the suspicion that it could have been a chemical attack. 07:30.000 --> 07:36.000 In order to keep on investigating, he needed to know the exact place in which te projectiles had fallen. 07:36.000 --> 07:40.000 He used a key technique geolocation. 08:45.000 --> 08:47.000 The Goldsmith University of London. 08:50.000 --> 08:55.000 In this office, mainly work architects but also 08:55.000 --> 08:58.000 designers, scientists, filmmakers, artists, etc. 08:58.000 --> 09:05.000 They use the most advanced architectonic techniques in order to reconstruct events in the conflict zones. 09:10.000 --> 09:16.000 Three bombardments shake the Syrian town of de Atimah, on the border with Turkey. 09:16.000 --> 09:21.000 Less than a kilometres away there is a refugee camp which is host to 30,000 civilians. 09:58.000 --> 10:03.000 At a time when wars savagely affected the civil population and were often waged in urban zones, 10:03.000 --> 10:08.000 the physical environment may offer a dimension of the conflict. 10:15.000 --> 11:20.000 The investigation concludes that the missiles were launched near houses and a public building, 11:20.000 --> 11:23.000 and a 900 metre from the refugee camp. 11:23.000 --> 11:29.000 The attack, which was supposedly directed at militants of Al Qaeda, killed six civilians. 11:29.000 --> 11:32.000 A disproportionate amount of munition was used. 12:27.000 --> 12:32.000 Eliot began his investigation alone, but through the Internet he contacted activists and Experts. 12:32.000 --> 12:40.000 With their help, he concluded that the supposed chemical weapon was a 140 millimetre artillery shell 12:40.000 --> 12:46.000 which could be filled with about 50 or 60 litres of sarin, a liquid chemical agent. 12:50.000 --> 12:54.000 Days after the attack in Ghouta, the chemical weapons inspectors of the UNO 12:54.000 --> 12:59.000 accessed the scenario of the killing, took samples and examined the munition. 13:24.000 --> 13:27.000 "Operation Israeli Margin Protector” in the Gaza Strip. 13:27.000 --> 13:32.000 The ceasefire broke up when thousands of civilians returned to their homes. 13:32.000 --> 13:41.000 Armed Palestinian groups captured an Israeli soldier. 13:41.000 --> 13:46.000 That Friday, the Army fired more than two thousand projectiles on the city of Rafah. 13:50.000 --> 13:55.000 During the two day siege, between 135 and 200 civilians died. 14:01.000 --> 14:07.000 What we wanted to know was exactly what happened, where and when, 14:07.000 --> 14:14.000 and what kind of weapons had been used by Israeli forces 14:14.000 --> 14:22.000 to answer the question of whether Israeli forces had committed war crimes. 14:30.000 --> 14:34.000 The human rights activists have more and more work. 14:34.000 --> 14:41.000 Philip Luther, of Amnesty International pointed out the Black Friday of Rafah as a paradigmatic case 14:43.000 --> 14:47.000 in an urban one from which a multitude of videos and photos arrive. 14:47.000 --> 14:50.000 The investigation of sources opened may provide the key 14:50.000 --> 14:55.000 to knowing whether the rules of war have been respected. 14:57.000 --> 14:59.000 It is very important to reconstruct a scenario of conflict, 14:59.000 --> 15:04.000 because in war we talk about 'the fog of war', 15:04.000 --> 15:12.000 what we tried to do with 'Forensic Architecture' was to see through this fog. 15:17.000 --> 15:21.000 On request by Amnesty International, the Forensic Architecture team 15:21.000 --> 15:24.000 analysed hundreds of images of that day. 15:24.000 --> 15:30.000 With a morphological study of the smoke clouds, they discovered three videos of the same bombardment, 15:30.000 --> 15:33.000 the most lethal attack of that Friday. 15:35.000 --> 15:38.000 The satellite image, the geolocation of the three cameras 15:38.000 --> 15:43.000 and, in the intersection of the viewing angles, the site of the bombardment. 16:13.000 --> 16:19.000 The veil disappears. That morning of August 1, the French satellite Pléiades 16:19.000 --> 16:24.000 passed over the strip and took this high resolution image. 16:28.000 --> 16:33.000 With the shadows which appear in a video, the architects make a solar simulation 16:33.000 --> 16:40.000 and calculate the exact time of the bombardment 10:53 a.m. 17:25.000 --> 17:28.000 With the information available on the Internet 17:28.000 --> 17:33.000 they conclude that two missiles manufactured in the United States, 17:33.000 --> 17:37.000 among the largest munitions of the Israeli arsenal were launched. 17:37.000 --> 17:41.000 The architecture, one more weapon in this conflict, 17:41.000 --> 17:48.000 this time enables us to reconstruct the story of that back Friday in space and in time. 17:50.000 --> 17:56.000 We conclude that Israeli forces in Rafah on that day, 17:56.000 --> 18:13.000 on the one hand, targeted civilian targets, fleeing their homes, and also firing directly at medical personnel. 18:13.000 --> 18:19.000 These are overwhelming indications that they committed war crimes. 18:22.000 --> 18:28.000 The United Nations report confirms that the Israeli Army committed these war crimes. 19:01.000 --> 19:08.000 Eliot Higgins opens up to the world. His personal blog has become a more ambitious project. 19:08.000 --> 19:13.000 He obtains financing through crowdfunding and in 2014 he created Bellingcat, 19:13.000 --> 19:15.000 a non-profit organisation. 19:18.000 --> 19:23.000 The name in English comes from the popular fable of the Mice Council which deals 19:23.000 --> 19:26.000 with the the problem of who puts a bell on the cat. 19:26.000 --> 19:33.000 Investigating abuses against human rights or possible war crimes is a brave exercise. 20:04.000 --> 20:11.000 Hady al Khatib is one of the four researchers on the staff of Bellingcat, which has approximately 40 collaborators. 20:11.000 --> 20:20.000 The incorporation of this Syrian, who works from Berlin, extends the possibilities of addressing the conflict in real time. 21:09.000 --> 21:12.000 The image of Omran was seen all over the world. 21:12.000 --> 21:22.000 This five year old Syrian child, who had been rescued in Aleppo, became an icon of a childhood which only knew war. 21:46.000 --> 21:53.000 Hady and Eliot only required two weeks to find out who was behind that attack on civil building. 22:36.000 --> 22:40.000 The magnitude of the damage points to an air bombardment. 22:40.000 --> 22:46.000 The key to knowing whether it had been Russian aircraft was discovered in the monitoring of flights 22:46.000 --> 22:49.000 carried out by a civil Syrian group. 24:31.000 --> 24:34.000 The important media call them “digital detectives” 24:34.000 --> 24:37.000 and provide the general public with their research. 24:37.000 --> 24:42.000 They cite Bellingcat as a source and highlight its methodology 24:43.000 --> 24:47.000 Learn from people who are using detective techniques, forensic techniques, 24:47.000 --> 24:52.000 to be able to do analysis yourself as we are doing. 24:55.000 --> 25:01.000 The Guardian has created a Department of Visuals: this includes journalists, engineers, designers and other professionals. 25:01.000 --> 25:07.000 Using the force of the image, they combine techniques to shed light 25:07.000 --> 25:10.000 on complex matters, including armed conflicts. 25:13.000 --> 25:16.000 I believe that what Bellingcat is doing 25:16.000 --> 25:22.000 and what the investigative journalism do is complemented. 25:22.000 --> 25:26.000 Obviously there are times he is going to get ahead 25:26.000 --> 25:31.000 because research teams have other priorities, other stories in mind. 26:06.000 --> 26:12.000 Eliot Higgins was the first to demonstrate that the Army of Al Assad was dropping barrel bombs on the population. 26:13.000 --> 26:19.000 He has documented the use of cluster bombs in Syria for Human Rights Watch. 26:22.000 --> 26:26.000 He revealed the trade in weapons from Croatia to the Syrian rebel groups. 26:29.000 --> 26:35.000 In the case of the MH17, the Malaysia Airlines flight which disappeared when it was flying over Ukraine, 26:35.000 --> 26:40.000 the work of Bellingcat has served as a basis for the official investigation of the facts. 26:40.000 --> 26:45.000 Its verification points to a Russian missile bringing it down. 27:36.000 --> 27:42.000 How is it possible to refute the lies posted on the Internet if this material may be false? 27:43.000 --> 27:49.000 First Draft News, the portal directed by the journalist Alastair Reid, facilitates tools 27:49.000 --> 27:51.000 in order to verify what appears on the Internet. 27:51.000 --> 27:56.000 In the digital era, this is often the first information to reach us. 27:56.000 --> 28:00.000 Is it possible to check whether an image is authentic? 28:30.000 --> 28:36.000 In order to verify this video, Alastair recommends that we use the tool created by Amnesty International 28:36.000 --> 28:43.000 in its citizen investigation project, Citizen Evidence Lab. It breaks down the video into photograms 28:43.000 --> 28:48.000 and we can verify whether this fixed image was posted on the Internet 28:48.000 --> 28:54.000 before the date of the attack, March 22, 2016. 29:49.000 --> 29:54.000 At this association of lawyers in London, they have decided to put technology at the service of human rights. 29:54.000 --> 30:02.000 They have developed an application for mobile phones, eyeWitness to Atrocities, 30:02.000 --> 30:07.000 which makes it possible to record images and sound securely. 30:34.000 --> 30:41.000 This application guarantees that the recording is authentic and that sensitive material reaches this lawyers’ office. 30:41.000 --> 30:46.000 The file is sent encrypted from the mobile and remains in the custody of the association. 31:23.000 --> 31:28.000 Verifying the truth may be extremely complicated in some places, 31:28.000 --> 31:33.000 especially when journalists and human rights organisations are refused access. 31:35.000 --> 31:41.000 In these kinds of situations, the eye witnesses are the first and sometimes the only persons 31:41.000 --> 31:43.000 who can bear witness to what has happened. 31:43.000 --> 31:48.000 Faced with a information lockout, the open code investigation can decipher 31:48.000 --> 31:54.000 what was concealed until then: it can be our eyes where we cannot enter. 31:57.000 --> 32:00.000 Syria is one of these black points. 32:02.000 --> 32:13.000 The Saydnaya prison is off limits. It is, like many parts of the territory controlled by the Syrian government, 32:13.000 --> 32:22.000 completely out of bounds for human rights investigators, for many media, 32:22.000 --> 32:32.000 and then it is a place where torture is committed daily 32:32.000 --> 32:36.000 and no one knows exactly what is going on. 34:22.000 --> 34:29.000 There is evidence that those who used these chemical weapons were the armed militia. 32:40.000 --> 32:43.000 Few leave this impenetrable Damascus prison alive. 32:43.000 --> 32:46.000 With the testimonies of five survivors, 32:46.000 --> 32:52.000 Amnesty and Forensic Architecture take us into the bowels of this prison of horrors 32:52.000 --> 32:56.000 through an interactive project. 34:43.000 --> 34:49.000 In this video, posted on the Internet, Eliot discovered the name of the ammunition used in the sarin attacks: 34:49.000 --> 34:55.000 the Vulkan missile. Moreover, through the time from firing to the explosion, he calculated its reach. 34:55.000 --> 34:59.000 He continued to fit the pieces he found on the Internet together 34:59.000 --> 35:03.000 until he located the positions of the Syrian Government forces. 36:18.000 --> 36:24.000 The open code investigation makes it possible to closely monitor what happens in far off conflicts 36:24.000 --> 36:30.000 and denounce the violations of human rights and other crimes even in places which are difficult to access 36:33.000 --> 36:38.000 However, is this sufficient to bring those responsible to justice? 36:40.000 --> 36:46.000 A court with adequate resources 36:46.000 --> 36:50.000 and with sufficient impartiality and independence 36:50.000 --> 36:54.000 is needed to carry out this type of investigation. 36:54.000 --> 37:02.000 They have to conclude that a particular person has given the order to shoot. 37:16.000 --> 37:21.000 Historical case: The Court of The Hague sentenced the jihadist Al Mahdi 37:21.000 --> 37:26.000 to nine years imprisonment for damaging sacred tombs and a mosque in Mali. 37:26.000 --> 37:30.000 This is the first international sentence for the destruction of the cultural heritage. 37:30.000 --> 37:37.000 For the first time, among the evidence used to incriminate him there was an interactive model 37:37.000 --> 37:43.000 which combined videos, photographs in 360 degrees and satellite images. 37:43.000 --> 37:48.000 The open code investigations have begun to bear fruit. 37:50.000 --> 37:57.000 The International Criminal Court is currently conducting a preliminary examination 37:57.000 --> 38:03.000 of what happened in Gaza in 2014. 38:03.000 --> 38:09.000 If one day they decide to open a criminal investigation, 38:09.000 --> 38:17.000 our information could help bring those criminals to justice. 39:13.000 --> 39:17.000 In a world at war in which the powers try to impose their versions of the truth, 39:17.000 --> 39:22.000 the investigation of open sources fights to reveal the official lies. 39:24.000 --> 39:29.000 Finance is needed in order to maintain independence and the capacity to investigate. 39:29.000 --> 39:33.000 Journalism must also opt for this. 39:33.000 --> 39:37.000 Perhaps the key lies in ceasing to act individually 39:37.000 --> 39:40.000 in order to work as part of an Internet society. 39:42.000 --> 39:49.000 From different places throughout the world, Eliot and others have opened up a new route to truth. 39:49.000 --> 39:52.000 Are you willing to take that route?