How Social Media Is Saving Lives In Repressive And Violent Countries

Twitter vs. The KGB -- Foreign Policy

Can social media save a journalist in trouble in a place like Kyrgyzstan?

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — On Nov. 2, Nic Tanner seemed like a lucky guy: He'd spent all of three weeks in Kyrgyzstan -- an impoverished, landlocked squiggle of a country on the fringes of the former Soviet empire -- and had already managed to publish a photo on the homepage of the New York Times. He was 27, paid $9 a night for his hotel room, and was just starting to pull together a professional portfolio in a place he loved. Life looked good.

Nic was based in the southern city of Osh, a scruffy provincial town of 260,000 nestled along a major drug-exporting route from Afghanistan. In June 2010, Osh had been the epicenter of interethnic carnage that left more than 400 dead and thousands homeless. For months afterward, the bereaved passed around photos of scorched, mutilated bodies that had once, possibly, belonged to people they loved. The city's burly mayor and local security forces were accused by three Western inquiries of doing too little to prevent the bloodshed, at a minimum, and possibly abetting it. They denied the charges. The trials and investigations that followed the fighting, according to Human Rights Watch, were marred by "threats, violence, and serious violations, such as arbitrary arrest, torture, and ill-treatment."

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My Comment: As a foreigner .... he was lucky. For locals .... I doubt that they would get the same experience.