This was originally posted on WITNESS’ blog on 22 February 2018, and was contributed by Anna Lekas Miller, WITNESS’ MENA Communications Consultant based in London.
In 2015, WITNESS and PILnet co-hosted a Video as Evidence training in Casablanca, Morocco, designed to train lawyers from across the MENA region in how to use video footage as evidence in a trial. While the participants were interested in the concept, many of them did not know how video would fit the legal context of their respective countries. How do you use video as evidence, when video has never been used as evidence before?
Over the following months, WITNESS and PILnet collaborated to fill this gap–traveling to Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan, collaborating with local partners to research each jurisdiction. The result is a 70-page report that examines legal contexts, precedents, and challenges facing each of the surveyed countries; you can read it in English and in Arabic.
In an interview conducted by PILnet and WITNESS following the publishing of the report (see here), Tara Vassefi (VAE Legal Fellow) joins Raja Althaibani (WITNESS MENA Program Manager) and Maysa Zorob (former PILnet Senior Legal Officer for MENA) to discuss the creation of the Video as Evidence report.
For the full interview posted on WITNESS’ blog, click here.
To read this in Arabic, click here.
For more information visit vae.witness.org.
