Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Last updated
Human Rights Data Analysis Group
Founded1991
Founder Patrick Ball
Type Non-profit
Location
Origins AAAS Science and Human Rights Program
Area served
Global
ProductData analysis in the field of human rights
MethodAssisting human rights projects by conducting rigorous scientific and statistical analysis of large-scale human rights abuses
OwnerHuman Rights Data Analysis Group
Key people
Patrick Ball, Megan Price
Website hrdag.org

The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world. It was founded in 1991 by Patrick Ball. The organization has published findings on conflicts in Syria, [1] Colombia, [2] Chad, [3] Kosovo, [4] Guatemala, [5] Peru, East Timor, [6] India, Liberia, Bangladesh, and Sierra Leone. The organization provided testimony in the war crimes trials of Slobodan Milošević and Milan Milutinović at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and in Guatemala's Supreme Court in the trial of General José Efraín Ríos Montt, the de facto president of Guatemala in 1982–1983. Gen. Ríos was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. [7] Most recently, the organization has published on police violence in the United States. [8]

Contents

History

The Human Rights Data Analysis Group was founded in December, 1991, by Patrick Ball as a part of the Science and Human Rights Program within the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [9] It moved to the non-profit umbrella company Benetech on November 3, 2003. [10] On February 1, 2013, HRDAG became an independent nonprofit organization, fiscally sponsored by Community Partners. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chad</span> Country in North-Central Africa

Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon to the southwest, Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Chad has a population of 16 million, of which 1.6 million live in the capital and largest city of N'Djamena. With a total area of around 1,300,000 km2 (500,000 sq mi), Chad is the fifth-largest country in Africa and the twentieth largest nation by area in the world.

Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states or international organizations to prosecute individuals for serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crime was committed and irrespective of the accused's nationality or residence. Rooted in the belief that certain offenses are so heinous that they threaten the international community as a whole, universal jurisdiction holds that such acts are beyond the scope of any single nation's laws. Instead, these crimes are considered to violate norms owed to the global community and fundamental principles of international law, making them prosecutable in any court that invokes this principle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hissène Habré</span> Chadian politician and convicted war criminal

Hissène Habré, also spelled Hissen Habré, was a Chadian politician and convicted war criminal who served as the 5th president of Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Efraín Ríos Montt</span> 38th President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983

José Efraín Ríos Montt was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as de facto President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods in the long-running Guatemalan Civil War. Ríos Montt's counter-insurgency strategies significantly weakened the Marxist guerrillas organized under the umbrella of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) while also leading to accusations of war crimes and genocide perpetrated by the Guatemalan Army under his leadership.

The Janjaweed are an Arab nomad militia group operating in the Sahel region that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur and eastern Chad. They are also active in Yemen due to participating in the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen. According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Arab nomad tribes from the Sahel, the core of whom are Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.

The Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la Défense des Droits de l'Homme or Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights is a human rights organization operating in Chad. According to group co-founder Delphine Djiraibe, following the rebellion by Idriss Déby that overthrew the dictatorship of Hissène Habré in 1990, she and several colleagues returned to Chad from abroad and saw widespread starvation and poverty among the people. The event motivated them to found the ATDPH to prevent similar suffering in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benetech</span> American non-profit organization

Benetech is a nonprofit social enterprise organization that empowers communities with software for social good. Previous projects include the Route 66 Literacy Project, the Miradi environmental project management software, Martus, and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group. Current program areas include global education, human rights, and poverty alleviation.

Chad is a country in Africa bordering Libya. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the main intelligence agency of the United States of America. The CIA was active in Chad in the 1980s, due to what the US perceived as a strategic interest in limiting the power of its opponent Muammar Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya since 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Ball</span> American software programmer

Patrick Ball is an American scientist who has spent thirty years conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, non-governmental organizations, international criminal tribunals, and United Nations missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Chad, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Kosovo, Liberia, Peru, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Syria. As director of research at Human Rights Data Analysis Group, he assists human rights defenders by conducting scientific and statistical analysis of large-scale human rights abuses. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University, and his doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Jacqueline Moudeina is a Chadian lawyer and human rights activist, who is known for her work in bringing Hissène Habré to justice for crimes against humanity, as well as those who worked with him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reed Brody</span> American human rights lawyer

Reed Brody is a Hungarian-American human rights lawyer and prosecutor. He specializes in helping victims pursue abusive leaders for atrocities, and has gained fame as the "Dictator Hunter." He was counsel for the victims in the case of the exiled former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré – who was convicted of crimes against humanity in Senegal – and has worked with the victims of Augusto Pinochet and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. He currently works with victims of the former dictator of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is a lawyer for the ousted president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum and is a member of the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua. He is the author of several books including To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré (2022).

In July 2005, in an abandoned warehouse in downtown Guatemala City, Guatemala, delegates from the country's Institution of the Procurator for Human Rights uncovered, by sheer chance, a vast archive detailing the history of the defunct National Police and its role in the Guatemalan Civil War. Over five rooms full of files containing names, address, identity documents, were brought to light.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidiki Kaba</span> Senegalese politician

Sidiki Kaba is a Senegalese politician who served as the 15th Prime Minister of Senegal from 6 March 2024 to 3 April 2024.

The Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes and Misappropriations Committed by Ex-President Habré, His Accomplices and/or Accessories was established on December 29, 1990, by the President of Chad, Idriss Déby. Its goal was to investigate the "illegal detentions, assassinations, disappearances, torture, mistreatment, other attacks on the physical and mental integrity of persons; plus all violations of human rights, illicit narcotics trafficking and embezzlement of state funds between 1982 and 1990", when former President Hissène Habré was in power.

This article is a list of events in the year 2005 in Chad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megan Price</span> Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Megan E. Price is Executive Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group. She collects and analyses data to investigate violations to human rights.

Alain Werner is a Swiss human rights lawyer, specialized in the defence of victims of armed conflicts, founder and director of Civitas Maxima (CM), an international network of lawyers and investigators based in Geneva that since 2012 represents victims of mass crimes in their attempts to obtain justice.

Events in the year 2011 in Chad.

Events in the year 2013 in Chad.

Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in Chad on April 28, 2020, following a unanimous vote by the National Assembly of Chad. Prior to April 2020, Chad's 003/PR/2020 "anti-terrorism" law maintained capital punishment for terrorism-related offenses. Chad's new penal code, which was adopted in 2014 and promulgated in 2017, had abolished capital punishment for all other crimes.

References

  1. Price, Megan; Jeff Klingner; Patrick Ball (2013). Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic (PDF). The Benetech Human Rights Program, commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).[ permanent dead link ]
  2. Guzmán, Daniel; Tamy Guberek; Megan Price (2012). Unobserved Union Violence: Statistical Estimates of the Total Number of Trade Unionists Killed in Colombia,1999-2008 (PDF). The Benetech Human Rights Program.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. Silva, Romesh; Jeff Klingner; Scott Weikart (2010). State Coordinated Violence in Chad under Hissène Habré: A Statistical Analysis of Reported Prison Mortality in Chad's DDS Prisons and Command Responsibility of Hissène Habré, 1982-1990 (PDF). The Benetech Human Rights Program, for Human Rights Watch and the Chadian Association of Victims of Political Repression and Crimes.[ permanent dead link ]
  4. Ball, Patrick (1999). Policy or Panic? The Flight of Ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, March-May 1999. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  5. Davenport, Christian; Patrick Ball (2002). "Views to a Kill: Exploring the Implications of Source Selection in the Case of Guatemalan State Terror, 1977-1996". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 46 (3): 427–450. doi:10.1177/0022002702046003005.
  6. Harrison, Ann (2006-02-09). "Coders Bare Invasion Death Count". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 2009-12-08.
  7. Malkin, Elisabeth (2013-05-10). "Former Leader of Guatemala Is Guilty of Genocide Against Mayan Group". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  8. Ball, Patrick (2016). "Violence in Blue". Granta. 134 (4 March 2016).
  9. Grillo, Christine (2016-12-10). "HRDAG – 25 Years and Counting". HRDAG - Human Rights Data Analysis Group. Archived from the original on 2024-12-20. Retrieved 2024-12-20.
  10. "AAAS Science and Human Rights Program - Human Rights Data Analysis Group". American Association for the Advancement of Science . 2008-03-18. Archived from the original on 2010-07-02. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  11. Adams, Justin (2013-01-02). "Benetech Celebrates Milestone; Human Rights Data Analysis Group Transitioning into Independent Organization". Benetech . Archived from the original on 2013-04-06. Retrieved 2013-02-22.