Tag Archives: #Jan30

Crisis Mapping the End of Sudan’s Dictatorship?

Posted on June 24, 2012 | 10 comments

Anyone following the twitter hashtag #SudanRevolts in recent days must be stunned by the shocking lack of coverage in the mainstream media. The protests have been escalating since June 17 when female students at the University of Khartoum began demonstrating against the regime’s austerity measures, which are increasing the prices of basic commodities and removing fuel subsidies. The dissent has quickly spread to other universities and communities.

There’s no doubt that Sudan’s dictator is in trouble. He faces international economic sanctions and a mounting US$2.5 billion budget deficit following the secession of South Sudan last year. What’s more, he is also “fighting expensive, devastating, and unpopular wars in Darfur (in the west), Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan, and the Nuba Mountains (on the border with South Sudan)” (UN Dispatch). So what next?

Enter Sudan Change Now, a Sudanese political movement with a clear mandate: peaceful but total democratic change. They seek to “defeat the present power of darkness using all necessary tools of peace resistance to achieve political stability and social peace.” The movement is thus “working on creating a common front that incorporates all victims of the current regime to ensure a unified and effective course of action to overthrow it.” Here are some important videos they have captured of the protests.

According to GlobalVoices, “The Sudanese online community believe that media coverage was an integral part of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and are therefore demanding the same for Sudan.” The political movement Sudan Change Now is thus turning to crisis mapping to cast more light on the civil resistance efforts in the Sudan:

https://sudanchangenow2012.crowdmap.com

The crisis map includes over 50 individual reports (all added in the past 24 hours) ranging from female protestors confronting armed guards to Sudanese security forces using tear gas to break up demonstrations. There are also reports of detained activists and journalists. These reports come from twitter while more recent incidents are sourced from the little mainstream media coverage that currently exists. The live map is being updated several times a day.

As my colleague Carol Gallo reminds us, “The University of Khartoum was also the birthplace of the movement that led to the overthrow of the military government in 1964.” Symbols and anniversaries are important features of civil resistance. For example, Sudan’s current ruling party came to power on June 30th, 1989. So protestors including those with Sudan Change Now are gearing up for some major demonstrations this Wednesday.

This is not the first crisis map of protests in Khartoum. In January 2011, activists launched this crisis map. I hope that protestors engaged in current civil resistance efforts take note of the lessons learned from last year’s #Jan30 demonstrations. For my doctoral dissertation, I compared the use of crisis maps by Egyptian and Sudanese activists in 2010. If I had to boil down the findings into three key words, these would be: unity, preparedness, creativity.

Unity is absolutely instrumental in civil resistance. As for preparedness, nothing should be left to chance. Prepare and plan the sequence of civil resistance efforts (along with likely reactions) and remember that protests come at the end. The ground-work must first be laid with other civil resistance tactics and thence escalated. Finally, creativity is essential, so here are some tactics that may provide some ideas. They include both traditional tactics and technology-enabled ones like digital crisis maps.

NB: I understand that the security risks of using the Ushahidi mapping platform have been indirectly communicated to the activists.

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Posted in Crisis Mapping, Crowdsourcing, Digital Activism, Social Media

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How to Use Facebook if You Are a Repressive Regime

Posted on February 10, 2011 | 36 comments

As it happens, the main country case studies for my dissertation are Egypt and the Sudan. I’ll have to write a whole lot more given the unprecedented events that have taken place in both countries since January 25th. As many iRevolution readers know, my dissertation analyzes how access to new information and communication technologies changes the balance of power between repressive regimes and popular resistance movements. This means I’m paying close attention to how these regimes leverage tools like Facebook.

The purpose of this blog post is not to help repressive regimes use Facebook better, but rather to warn activists about the risks they face when using Facebook. Granted, many activists already know about these risks, but those I’ve been in touch with over the past few weeks simply had no idea. So what follows is a brief account of how repressive regimes in North Africa have recently used Facebook to further their own ends. I also include some specific steps that activists might take to be safer—that said, I’m no expert and would very much welcome feedback so I can pass this on to colleagues.

We’ve seen how Facebook was used in Tunisia, Egypt and the Sudan to schedule and organize the recent protests. What we’ve also seen, however, is sophistication and learning on the part of repressive regimes—this is nothing new and perfectly expected with plenty of precedents. The government in Tunis was able to hack into every single Facebook account before the company intervened. In Egypt, the police used Facebook to track down protesters’ names before rounding them up. Again, this is nothing new and certainly not unprecedented. What is new, however, is how Sudan’s President Bashir leveraged Facebook to crack down on recent protests.

The Sudanese government reportedly set up a Facebook group calling for protests on a given date at a specific place. Thousands of activists promptly subscribed to this group. The government then deliberately changed the time of the protests on the day of to create confusion and stationed police at the rendez-vous point where they promptly arrested several dozen protestors in one swoop. There are also credible reports that many of those arrested were then tortured to reveal their Facebook (and email) passwords.

And that’s not all. Earlier this week, Bashir called on his supporters to use Facebook to push back against his opposition. According to this article from the Sudan Tribune, the state’s official news agency also “cited Bashir as instructing authorities to pay more attention towards extending electricity to the countryside so that the younger citizens can use computers and internet to combat opposition through social networking sites such as Facebook.”

So what are activists to do? If they use false names, they run the risk of getting their accounts shut down without warning. Using a false identity won’t prevent you from falling for the kind of mouse trap that the Bashir government set with their fabricated Facebook page. Using https won’t help either with this kind of trap and I understand that some regimes can block https access anyway. So what to do if you are in a precarious situation with a sophisticated repressive regime on your back and if, like 99% of the world’s population, you are not an expert in computer security?

1. Back-up your Facebook account: Account –> Account Settings –> Download your information –> Learn more. Click on the Download button.

2. Remove all sensitive content from your Facebook page including links to activist friends, but keep your real name and profile picture. Why? So if you do get arrested and are forced to give up your password, you actually have something to give to your aggressors and remain credible during the interrogation.

3. Create a new Facebook account with a false name, email address and no picture and minimize incriminating content. Yes, I realize this may get you shut down by Facebook but is that as bad as getting tortured?

4. Create an account on Crabgrass. This social networking platform is reportedly more secure and can be used anonymously. A number of activists have apparently switched from Facebook to Crabgrass.

6. If you can do all of the above while using Tor, more power to you. Tor allows you to browse the web anonymously, and this is really important when doing the above. So I highly recommend taking the time to download and install Tor before you do any of the other steps above.

5. Try to validate the authenticity of a Facebook group that calls for a protest (or any in-person event for that matter) before going to said protest. As the Sudan case shows, governments may increasingly use this tactic to arrest activists and thwart demonstrations.

6. Remember that your activist friends may have had their Facebook accounts compromised. So when you receive a Facebook message or a note on your wall from a friend about meeting up in person, try to validate the account user’s identity before meeting in person.

If you have additional recommendations on how to use Facebook safely, or other examples of how repressive regimes have leveraged Facebook, please do add them in the comments section below for others to read and learn. Thank you.

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Posted in Digital Activism, Social Media

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Facebook https is now live for Sudan

Posted on January 31, 2011 | 14 comments

A very big thank you to the team at Facebook for allowing users in the Sudan to access Facebook securely. Instead of using the regular http:// access to the site, using https:// means that your connection is securely encrypted. This prevents malicious users from spying on your account and seeing your password, for example. This is why all online banking websites use https, as does Google with gmail. Tunisia in many ways set the precedent. Read this excellent account on the inside story of how Facebook responded to Tunisian hacks.

As we have seen in many situations, Facebook is often used by activists to schedule and coordinate mass action. This is equally true of the Sudan, with this Jan30 Facebook group, which now has over 17,000 members. However, in my recent Skype conversations with a number of Sudanese activists, I’ve realized that many of them didn’t know that the Tunisian government (for example) had been able to hack into Facebook accounts. While using https is not a complete panacea, it definitely is a step in the right direction re communicating securely in repressive environments. I’ve also encouraged colleagues to switch to using Hushmail for email communication.

So for colleagues in the Sudan, to set up https:// access, go to “My Account” then “Settings” and then “Account Security.” Here’s the equivalent in the Arabic interface:

You should click on “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible” and also on “Send me an email” that way you get sent an automated email when a new computer or mobile phone logs into your account. If you have any questions, feel free to add them in the comments section of this blog.

Here are some other steps you can take to use Facebook more securely:

1. Do not share sensitive info on FB
2. User passphrases instead of passwords
3. Change you name, or at least do not provide your full name on FB*
4. Do not use a picture of yourself for your FB profile picture
5. Logout of FB when not using the site

* Use this with caution as it violates FB’s terms of service and if someone is targeting you, they can report you to FB. Also do not give FB your identification if asked (@JillianYork).

Again, using https and following these five steps is no guarantee that your account won’t be hacked, but it maximizes your chances of using Facebook more safely. If you have any security tips to share, please add them in the comments section of this blog post.

A big thank you once again to Facebook. I emailed them (via another colleague) with my concerns regarding Sudanese activists and they responded in a just a matter of hours. Facebook is also in the process of rolling this https option out for all their users worldwide.

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Posted in Digital Activism, Humanitarian Technologies, Social Media

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Civil Resistance: Early Lessons Learned from Sudan’s #Jan30

Posted on January 31, 2011 | 11 comments

Sudanese activists in Khartoum have shared early reflections on how they can improve their efforts. These lessons are applicable to others engaged in civil resistance and are therefore shared below.

Source 1:

There was insufficient clear communication leading up to the first protest, which led to the first mistake since NCP members were able to fake a delay of the event which mean that we lost a considerable number of our protesters.

The timing of the protest was also off.  You can not except an average Sudanese citizen to protest on the 30th of January after he just got his salary. The satisfaction of that will cover up the feeling of injustices and humiliation. So if a date is set up, it should be the 15th, 16th or 17th (the depression days in the Sudanese dictionary). Also, we can not except protesters to participate in something like this at 11:00am or 11:30am when every body is either in the middle of their job or on the way to it.

And we forget the main factor: the youth. Most of them are students that constrained with lecture attendance sheets: the Sudanese universities are very extreme in that matter since 2005 and students are failed out of class by teachers for skipping more than 25% of lectures, which means they would need to repeat the course or the whole year). So the time should change to 2:00pm or 2:30pm.

In the matter of using Facebook as our only connection yes we can recruit youth and talk to them about the problem that they are facing but in order to transfer from Facebook to the Sudanese reality you need a prepared arena, i.e., at least 50% of the city residents need to know what you will do before you do it. So I suggest more communication with the public before a month at least from the event and this needs creativity and persuasiveness.

Source 2:

… I met two friends and went up the road towards the presidential place at the end of the street. There was massive policemen presence and young people wandering around. I knew that they were confused about where the demonstration would begin. People did not know who were with them and who were against them. When we got closer to cross of Baladiya street with Qasar, people were running away, we kept moving and we saw people in plain clothes with policemen beating four persons, they were about 20 policemen and those  people in plain clothes, armed with stick and pipe, beating very hard those four persons, on chest, head and arms. This scene discouraged people to demonstrate, and of course that was the message security forces were trying to send.

Source 3:

We were very much predictable to the NCP members, we shouldn’t underestimate them in that matter we are dealing with people who have experience in destroying events like this cause the Sudanese didn’t change their ways in that matter since 1985 when they where the one’s who applied them with the rest of the parties… I have many thoughts about how we could work this event out. We also need someone from Egypt to tell us more about organizing and monitoring then we can readjust it to fit Sudan case.

There are some good resources (in Arabic) for activists in the Sudan and the Arab World (please contact me if you’d like copies):

  • Nonviolent Struggle – 50 Crucial Points.
  • Twitter for Activism.

There is also a Crowdmap on the protests in Khartoum which activists are contributing to.

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Posted in Digital Activism

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Crisis Mapping Sudan: Protest Map of Khartoum

Posted on January 30, 2011 | 14 comments

Unlike the many maps of the #Jan25 protests in neighboring Egypt there is but this one map for the #Jan30 protests taking place in the Sudan and Khartoum in particular. The map was requested by Sudanese colleagues in Khartoum who in their own words wanted a public map for the world to see what is happening in their own country.

Some 70 individual reports have been mapped thus far. These capture a range of incidents including the following:

  • Police use gas bombs against medical students [View Report]
  • Peaceful gatherings and demonstrations [View1 View2]
  • Sudanese security harassing foreign journalists [View1 View2]
  • Picture of police beating protesters on Palace Street [View]
  • Videos of protest in Khartoum [View]

While all eyes of the media are on Egypt, few are sharing the developments in the Sudan. This makes the Sudan map even more important. As Philip Howard has found in his comprehensive new study on “The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam,” the presence of a comparatively active online civil society appears to be one of the key ingredients for democratic transition. Compared to the online civil society in Egypt, the one in the Sudan is far smaller. But activists in Khartoum have reached out to digital activists outside the country for support. And this joint effort has  resulted in more than just a map.

Sudanese contacts have been sharing relevant information via email  and Skype throughout the day, some of which is mapped, and some which is included in the News section of the map. In addition, digital activists have provided training on Twitter and have set up a Flickr account for the Sudanese activists (at their request). See this DigiActive guide on how to use Twitter for activism, also available in Arabic (PDF).

The group has also been trying hard to set up a local FrontlineSMS number for activists to text their reports directly to the map. The first phone they tried didn’t work, so they’re looking to use a GSM modem in the coming days. (Update: an international number has been set up). Once a number is set up, the activists want to share it widely, including the 16,000+ members of the Jan30 Facebook group. Local activists hope this will help them overcome some of the coordination challenges that cropped up today when there was confusion over where and when the demonstrations were meant to take place. This resulted in smaller dispersed protests instead of mass action. You can read more on first hand accounts of this in the News section which includes an email written by Sudanese activist about what they saw today.

Despite the constraints in organization, activists still took to the streets but did face higher risks by being in smaller more dispersed groups. I’m hoping they’ll be able to regroup and plan their future protests in such a way that there is less confusion. The activists do have a full copy of the mass action strategy guide used by Egyptian protesters this week. This may serve them well if they can circulate it widely in the country.

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