In 1986, Peter Gabriel took his "Sledgehammer" to pop music, smashing his old band mates Gensis and their "Invisible Touch" right off the top of the charts. In 2002, Gabriel co-founded WITNESS, aimed at smashing secrecy over human rights abuses. In 2004, he eventually turned down an idea of retouring with Genesis. Now he has a new sledgehammer: The Hub. Conceived as a safety vault for video of human rights, the Hub offers independence from corporate correctness. One recent example: YouTube suspending access to video footage shot by Egyptian police officers. Using mobile phones to film colleagues beating a suspect, the clips were leaked to the web by Wael Abbas and other Egptian human rights bloggers. Notes the Hub:"They're so graphic that YouTube temporarily shut down Abbas' channel. It's now back up - but shows the importance of a place like the Hub to house this material in context." Official agenda: The Hub is "a global platform for human rights media and action, including video, audio and photos related to violations of human rights of all kinds, whether they be political, civil, social, economic or cultural rights." Importance to the Pacific: Ask anyone in East Timor, Papua, Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Hawai'i, Rapa Nui and French Polynesia about human rights abuses - guesstimated cases number in the tens if not hundreds of thousands - including legacy issues from colonial and nuclear corruption. Importance to human rights: the Hub is one of a small but fast growing number of organisations recognising media centrality to solving human rights and other issues. read more digg story
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