Through the Net to freedom: information, the Internet and human rights

Brophy, Peter and Halpin, Edward (1999) Through the Net to freedom: information, the Internet and human rights. Journal of information science, 25 (2). pp. 351-64. ISSN 0165-5515

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Abstract

The new tools of information and communication play an increasingly important role in many organizations, providing new opportunities and new challenges. The human rights world, for which good quality information is a prime requisite and information management is a vital skill, is equally faced with the opportunities and threats of these tools in promoting and protecting human rights. Human rights organizations have been quick to adopt the Internet and it is having a great number of impacts upon their work, creating change, providing new means of campaigning and challenging abuses of human rights. Reports results of a questionnaire survey, distributed via electronic mail throughout the networks operated by the Organisation Mondial Contre Torture (OMCT), to obtain information on how users use the Internet to obtain information on human rights issues (551 responses).