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Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention
The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention (commonly known as The Sentinel Project) is an international non-governmental organisation based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with approximately 60 members in North America. Its mission is "to prevent the crime of genocide worldwide through effective early warning and cooperation with victimized peoples to carry out non-violent prevention initiatives." The Sentinel Project was founded in 2008 by two students, Taneem Talukdar and Christopher Tuckwood, at the University of Waterloo. In 2009, the Sentinel Project's approach was selected as a finalist in Google's 10 to the 100th competition for innovative social application of technology. This organization has been recognized as one of four active anti-genocide organizations based in Canada and is a member of the International Alliance to End Genocide, and the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.
The Sentinel Project is developing a genocide risk assessment, forecasting and situation monitoring process to monitor vulnerable communities worldwide. Their objective is to systematically collect and assess data using a framework of analysis based on existing genocide research. This framework is used to systematically track "Situations of Concern" (SOCs), release regular forecasts and guide response strategies. Regular threat assessment updates with background analysis on root cause and context are consistently released. The Sentinel Project works with vulnerable communities to develop non-violent strategies and counter-measures to address the risk factors and operational processes identified as the underlying causes of the genocidal threat by effectively engaging target communities, policy-makers, NGOs and the media and developing on-the-ground information networks in SOCs. To support the process, the Sentinel Project had developed an online threat tracking, visualization, and broadcast early warning platform that aggregates public data from a wide range of sources in real-time: media stories, socioeconomic data, NGO reports, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. The project released its first public threat assessment report in May 2009. This report focused on the persecution of the Baháʼí Faith community in Iran. Since then, the group released two other reports on Kenya and Azerbaijan, and is currently working on assessment reports on the risk of genocide in Myanmar, Colombia and Indonesia. The group's reports and analysis have been disseminated by various media sources and advocacy organizations. To support its mission, the organization plans to create a Sentinel Hub, one of the world's first workspaces dedicated to developing and employing technologies for predicting and preventing mass atrocities.
The Sentinel Project team comprises volunteers from a diverse set of backgrounds including Anthropology, Conflict Studies, Communications and Mass Media, History, Political Science, Public Relations, War Crimes Investigation, Military Intelligence and Software Engineering. The organization has 3 main teams: Research, Technology and Operations. The research team conducts the risk assessment process which involves collecting information based on existing research, is responsible for developing an effective Early Warning System (EWS) to predict and determine the likelihood of genocide occurring in a given SOC, monitors events in SOCs to identify genocidal processes and key actors responsible, and is also responsible for staying up-to-date with current developments in genocide studies. The Technology team is responsible for building the ThreatWiki software platform that enables on-going monitoring and analysis processes and the operations team supports the day-to-day functions of the organization, such as fund-raising and volunteer management. The team is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with some members in the United States. The Sentinel Project also comprises individual experts who make up the Advisory Council. Members of the organization's Advisory Council include Gregory Stanton, Adam Jones, and Jack Chow. These individuals provide advice and guidance in key areas of expertise and fields such as Genocide Studies, Non-Profit Management, and Humanitarian Intelligence.
The Sentinel Project's EWS is meant to strengthen efforts to prevent genocide from occurring in areas at very high risk. Because many genocidal regimes throughout history have been sensitive to internal and external pressure during their preparation process, the Sentinel Project contends that the sooner the threat of genocide is identified, the more options there are for preventing it. While only military force can stop killing in progress, there are many non-violent options available for disrupting the genocidal process before extermination begins. When the threat of genocide is identified, the Sentinel Project aims to share the information with existing advocacy groups which can push for government and international measures while simultaneously consulting with subject-matter experts (SMEs) and targeted groups to craft preventive measures. Examples of such measures include countering hate speech often used to promote violence against specific groups. The Sentinel Project's EWS is a collection of people, tools and processes involved in gathering, analyzing and disseminating information on the risk of genocide. The EWS begins with Research Analyst examining the main characteristics that predispose a country to genocide. Research information is gathered from governmental, NGO, United Nations and academic sources. A list of risk factors is used to create a comprehensive risk profile before initiating active monitoring. Based on Gregory Stanton's "Eight Stages of Genocide" model, Operational Process Monitoring (OPM) begins when a country is declared an SOC during the risk assessment phase. Operational processes are the components of the overall genocidal process which facilitate the extermination of a specific group of people. The goal of OPM is to consistently gather event-based information from media and NGO reports, correspondents on the ground, and contacts within vulnerable communities. A Vulnerability Assessment is also done to examine the characteristics and actors within an SOC to determine a community's vulnerability to attack. Finally, analysts release regular situation forecasts in anticipation of situation developments and potential changes to the threat level of genocide.
Through its early warning capabilities, the Sentinel Project occupies a unique niche in the genocide prevention community. While many other organizations do the valuable work of maintaining watch lists of countries with violent, repressive governments where genocide could happen, the Sentinel Project's genocide early warning system fulfills a function not currently done by any other organization. The Sentinel Project strives to identify situations of concern at a much earlier stage when there are many options for prevention, and engages directly with the threatened communities to inform and empower them to participate in the prevention of their own genocides. From gathering information right through to implementing preventive measures, technology plays a key role in almost everything the Sentinel Project does. Here are a few major technological innovations developed by the organization to fulfill its mission:
The Sentinel Project launched its first prototype of ThreatWiki in May 2011 to start actively tracking and monitoring two situations of concern: Kenya and Iran. ThreatWiki is a data visualization platform that helps display operational processes within an SOC in the context of genocide threat. The platform presents an interactive display model that allows visitors to its website to be able to view and explore the root causes, relationships and operational processes behind an early warning released by the organization. The Sentinel Project is currently working on making ThreatWiki an open source project and its source code repository is now live on GitHub. Research Analysts at the Sentinel Project use ThreatWiki to input data from reliable sources to track SOCs with the help of a visual time-line that enables them to track the SOCs more closely. ThreatWiki shows exactly where events such as arrests, arson, or raids have taken place and the data point is not just a vague point on the map; "we are talking about cities, towns, latitude, and longitude of the area where the incident occurred." ThreatWiki also shows correlations on how incidents are related to one another according to how they are tagged. Improvements to ThreatWiki will soon make visualizations more interactive and informative.
Launched on 25 March 2013, Hatebase is the world's largest online repository of structured multi-lingual, usage-based hate speech. It is an attempt by the Sentinel Project and Mobiocracy to create a repository of words and phrases that researchers can use to detect the early stages of genocide and remains in active development. Hatebase offers two main features: a Wikipedia-like interface which allows users to classify and record location-specific "sightings", and an authenticating API that allows developers to mesh Hatebase data with other tools for genocide prevention. Critics have identified the challenges of capturing, organizing, and conceptualizing communication data through a cultural lens such as The Human Stain conundrum i.e. some words are only hateful in specific contexts. Data collected through Hatebase alone therefore cannot be used to predict ethnic violence, but used in conjunction with other warning factors (such as those from ThreatWiki), can provide insights about when words are about to spill over into actions.
The Artsakh or NKR, an ethnic Armenian enclave, has been claimed by Azerbaijan since its secession from the USSR in 1991. The ethnic Armenian population in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh is vulnerable, at risk of violence, and frequently the object of hate speech, sometimes by government officials. Since the 1992–1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War that followed the NKR secession and resulted in the occupation of former Azeri territory bordering the NKR by Armenian forces, more than 600,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes. Although pogroms, violence against civilians, and alleged genocide has occurred in the past, Azerbaijan's ethnic Armenian population is protected by the autonomous but unrecognized state of Nagorno-Karabakh which maintains its own military and receives assistance from the Armenian government. Therefore, the risk of genocide in Azerbaijan is directly linked to the risk of war. The occupation of the NKR by Azeri forces would need to happen before mass atrocities could be committed. Through its application of genocide models and analysis the Sentinel Project has assessed that Azerbaijan does not exhibit many of the conditions often seen as precursors to modern genocides. The Sentinel Project's Risk Assessment Report on Azerbaijan concludes that while the risk of genocide in Azerbaijan is high, in the event Heydar Aliyev's regime gains access to the ethnic Armenian population within the NKR, war is unlikely since it is seen as risky and potentially fatal to the regime.
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Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention
The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention (commonly known as The Sentinel Project) is an international non-governmental organisation based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with approximately 60 members in North America. Its mission is "to prevent the crime of genocide worldwide through effective early warning and cooperation with victimized peoples to carry out non-violent prevention initiatives." The Sentinel Project was founded in 2008 by two students, Taneem Talukdar and Christopher Tuckwood, at the University of Waterloo. In 2009, the Sentinel Project's approach was selected as a finalist in Google's 10 to the 100th competition for innovative social application of technology. This organization has been recognized as one of four active anti-genocide organizations based in Canada and is a member of the International Alliance to End Genocide, and the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.
The Sentinel Project is developing a genocide risk assessment, forecasting and situation monitoring process to monitor vulnerable communities worldwide. Their objective is to systematically collect and assess data using a framework of analysis based on existing genocide research. This framework is used to systematically track "Situations of Concern" (SOCs), release regular forecasts and guide response strategies. Regular threat assessment updates with background analysis on root cause and context are consistently released. The Sentinel Project works with vulnerable communities to develop non-violent strategies and counter-measures to address the risk factors and operational processes identified as the underlying causes of the genocidal threat by effectively engaging target communities, policy-makers, NGOs and the media and developing on-the-ground information networks in SOCs. To support the process, the Sentinel Project had developed an online threat tracking, visualization, and broadcast early warning platform that aggregates public data from a wide range of sources in real-time: media stories, socioeconomic data, NGO reports, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. The project released its first public threat assessment report in May 2009. This report focused on the persecution of the Baháʼí Faith community in Iran. Since then, the group released two other reports on Kenya and Azerbaijan, and is currently working on assessment reports on the risk of genocide in Myanmar, Colombia and Indonesia. The group's reports and analysis have been disseminated by various media sources and advocacy organizations. To support its mission, the organization plans to create a Sentinel Hub, one of the world's first workspaces dedicated to developing and employing technologies for predicting and preventing mass atrocities.
The Sentinel Project team comprises volunteers from a diverse set of backgrounds including Anthropology, Conflict Studies, Communications and Mass Media, History, Political Science, Public Relations, War Crimes Investigation, Military Intelligence and Software Engineering. The organization has 3 main teams: Research, Technology and Operations. The research team conducts the risk assessment process which involves collecting information based on existing research, is responsible for developing an effective Early Warning System (EWS) to predict and determine the likelihood of genocide occurring in a given SOC, monitors events in SOCs to identify genocidal processes and key actors responsible, and is also responsible for staying up-to-date with current developments in genocide studies. The Technology team is responsible for building the ThreatWiki software platform that enables on-going monitoring and analysis processes and the operations team supports the day-to-day functions of the organization, such as fund-raising and volunteer management. The team is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with some members in the United States. The Sentinel Project also comprises individual experts who make up the Advisory Council. Members of the organization's Advisory Council include Gregory Stanton, Adam Jones, and Jack Chow. These individuals provide advice and guidance in key areas of expertise and fields such as Genocide Studies, Non-Profit Management, and Humanitarian Intelligence.
The Sentinel Project's EWS is meant to strengthen efforts to prevent genocide from occurring in areas at very high risk. Because many genocidal regimes throughout history have been sensitive to internal and external pressure during their preparation process, the Sentinel Project contends that the sooner the threat of genocide is identified, the more options there are for preventing it. While only military force can stop killing in progress, there are many non-violent options available for disrupting the genocidal process before extermination begins. When the threat of genocide is identified, the Sentinel Project aims to share the information with existing advocacy groups which can push for government and international measures while simultaneously consulting with subject-matter experts (SMEs) and targeted groups to craft preventive measures. Examples of such measures include countering hate speech often used to promote violence against specific groups. The Sentinel Project's EWS is a collection of people, tools and processes involved in gathering, analyzing and disseminating information on the risk of genocide. The EWS begins with Research Analyst examining the main characteristics that predispose a country to genocide. Research information is gathered from governmental, NGO, United Nations and academic sources. A list of risk factors is used to create a comprehensive risk profile before initiating active monitoring. Based on Gregory Stanton's "Eight Stages of Genocide" model, Operational Process Monitoring (OPM) begins when a country is declared an SOC during the risk assessment phase. Operational processes are the components of the overall genocidal process which facilitate the extermination of a specific group of people. The goal of OPM is to consistently gather event-based information from media and NGO reports, correspondents on the ground, and contacts within vulnerable communities. A Vulnerability Assessment is also done to examine the characteristics and actors within an SOC to determine a community's vulnerability to attack. Finally, analysts release regular situation forecasts in anticipation of situation developments and potential changes to the threat level of genocide.
Through its early warning capabilities, the Sentinel Project occupies a unique niche in the genocide prevention community. While many other organizations do the valuable work of maintaining watch lists of countries with violent, repressive governments where genocide could happen, the Sentinel Project's genocide early warning system fulfills a function not currently done by any other organization. The Sentinel Project strives to identify situations of concern at a much earlier stage when there are many options for prevention, and engages directly with the threatened communities to inform and empower them to participate in the prevention of their own genocides. From gathering information right through to implementing preventive measures, technology plays a key role in almost everything the Sentinel Project does. Here are a few major technological innovations developed by the organization to fulfill its mission:
The Sentinel Project launched its first prototype of ThreatWiki in May 2011 to start actively tracking and monitoring two situations of concern: Kenya and Iran. ThreatWiki is a data visualization platform that helps display operational processes within an SOC in the context of genocide threat. The platform presents an interactive display model that allows visitors to its website to be able to view and explore the root causes, relationships and operational processes behind an early warning released by the organization. The Sentinel Project is currently working on making ThreatWiki an open source project and its source code repository is now live on GitHub. Research Analysts at the Sentinel Project use ThreatWiki to input data from reliable sources to track SOCs with the help of a visual time-line that enables them to track the SOCs more closely. ThreatWiki shows exactly where events such as arrests, arson, or raids have taken place and the data point is not just a vague point on the map; "we are talking about cities, towns, latitude, and longitude of the area where the incident occurred." ThreatWiki also shows correlations on how incidents are related to one another according to how they are tagged. Improvements to ThreatWiki will soon make visualizations more interactive and informative.
Launched on 25 March 2013, Hatebase is the world's largest online repository of structured multi-lingual, usage-based hate speech. It is an attempt by the Sentinel Project and Mobiocracy to create a repository of words and phrases that researchers can use to detect the early stages of genocide and remains in active development. Hatebase offers two main features: a Wikipedia-like interface which allows users to classify and record location-specific "sightings", and an authenticating API that allows developers to mesh Hatebase data with other tools for genocide prevention. Critics have identified the challenges of capturing, organizing, and conceptualizing communication data through a cultural lens such as The Human Stain conundrum i.e. some words are only hateful in specific contexts. Data collected through Hatebase alone therefore cannot be used to predict ethnic violence, but used in conjunction with other warning factors (such as those from ThreatWiki), can provide insights about when words are about to spill over into actions.
The Artsakh or NKR, an ethnic Armenian enclave, has been claimed by Azerbaijan since its secession from the USSR in 1991. The ethnic Armenian population in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh is vulnerable, at risk of violence, and frequently the object of hate speech, sometimes by government officials. Since the 1992–1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War that followed the NKR secession and resulted in the occupation of former Azeri territory bordering the NKR by Armenian forces, more than 600,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes. Although pogroms, violence against civilians, and alleged genocide has occurred in the past, Azerbaijan's ethnic Armenian population is protected by the autonomous but unrecognized state of Nagorno-Karabakh which maintains its own military and receives assistance from the Armenian government. Therefore, the risk of genocide in Azerbaijan is directly linked to the risk of war. The occupation of the NKR by Azeri forces would need to happen before mass atrocities could be committed. Through its application of genocide models and analysis the Sentinel Project has assessed that Azerbaijan does not exhibit many of the conditions often seen as precursors to modern genocides. The Sentinel Project's Risk Assessment Report on Azerbaijan concludes that while the risk of genocide in Azerbaijan is high, in the event Heydar Aliyev's regime gains access to the ethnic Armenian population within the NKR, war is unlikely since it is seen as risky and potentially fatal to the regime.