Internet Security Training for West African Journalists and Human Rights Activists (May - July 2013)

These training seminars will be held to allow West African journalists, social media, human rights, and democracy activists to learn how to proactively counteract on-line repression. The training seminars will be led by Doctor Richard Brooks of Clemson University in the United States, who has been working for the past year on a project called "Internet Democracy Support for West Africa." The education seminars provided will teach human rights and democracy activists, journalists, and activist social media users how to use counter-surveillance technologies developed by Doctor Brooks and his team at Clemson University. The seminars will also cover network security and privacy issues. Participants will be taught how to ensure secure communications and avoid on-line tracking.

Technologies such as Tor and I2P provide anonymous communications, but repressive governments use network filtering to block access to these services. The technical approach developed by Doctor Brooks counters existing network surveillance regimes.

Registration information:

Suitably qualified people are requested to apply for places in these training seminars. The seminars will be offered free of charge to suitably qualified candidates, but participants will have to cover all travel and subsistence costs themselves. The seminars will be held in French and English.
According to the organiser, in principle any human rights or democracy activist currently active in West Africa who has a record of using the internet to further the causes of democracy or human rights, and any journalist or social media activist who reports on human rights or democracy is suitably qualified. West Africans who develop counter-surveillance technologies for journalists and human rights activists are also suitably qualified. Universities in West Africa, which would like to participate in the project, and receive the support of Doctor Brooks and his team, are also invited to contact the organisers.

To allow the organiser to assess your qualifications, please send an email, in French or English, to idswaone@gmail.com. The email should detail your record in human rights, democracy activism, and journalism or as an activist user of social media. Please state whether you would prefer to attend a seminar in Paris or Abidjan. If you would like more details before applying by email, please call the below telephone number (in the United States) and leave a message, including your telephone number, so that the organisers can call you back.