Campaigners take their fight online

E-campaigning is proving an effective tool for activists. PETER GRIFFIN reports.

Amid the swirling clouds of tear gas and the debris of overturned police barricades that filled the streets of Quebec City at the weekend, an array of activists joined to oppose the western democracies' plans for a massive free-trade zone.

And while environmentalists, human rights advocates and anti-capitalists gathered to disrupt the Summit of the Americas conferences, the protest was being played out elsewhere - in cyberspace.

Supporters of the enigmatic activist group the Electrohippies Collective were taking part in a digital sit-in of Summit-related websites.

The UK-based group wanted to generate an electronic record of public opposition to the free trade talks through the server logs of summit-related sites. The more people that accessed the sites during the talks, the Electrohippies claimed on their website, the clearer it would be just how much opposition there was to Bush and his counterparts suggesting trade be opened up across the Americas.

The group which posts on its website do-it-yourself toolkits for the development of virtual protests, is just one of a vast array of activist groups extending their campaigns onto the net.

Their presence on the web ranges from basic text sites to highly sophisticated multimedia presentations. The net is providing marginalised groups with a soapbox to air their arguments on a global scale.

And, not surprisingly, it is the relatively well-funded activist groups that make their presence felt most.

Local Greenpeace campaigner Annette Cotter says the internet links the world's best-known activist group in a global network, where news of local campaigns - such as that against genetic engineering - is exchanged and protest can be more easily co-ordinated on a global scale.

"Nestle and Kellogg, for example, have gone GE-free in some parts of the world due to consumer pressure but not in other parts. We can use the internet to push for them to go GE-free everywhere," she explains.

At present Greenpeace has Tegel Chicken in its sights, unhappy with the company's policy of using genetically engineered chicken feed.

Through the New Zealand Greenpeace site, the public can send electronic postcards of protest to Tegel's management, find out about upcoming anti-GE campaigns and sign up as "cyber-activists" willing to wage digital war against local companies endorsing genetic engineering.

Greenpeace's virtual supermarket lets web users browse electronic aisles to find out which companies use genetically engineered ingredients.

The internet has also become crucial to that other major activist group that usually springs to mind - Amnesty International.

The organisation that was formed nearly 40 years ago to campaign for the release of "prisoners of conscience" and to stop torture and killings is now battling human rights abuses online as well.

Anil Pant, the director of Amnesty International's Nepal division, uses the internet and e-mail to keep tabs on his region, a traditional hotbed of human rights abuses.

In 1996 Mr Pant, who arrives in Auckland this week to meet local members of Amnesty, was one of five campaigners arrested in Kathmandu while collecting signatures and distributing materials about Amnesty International's human rights concerns in China.

The group spent three days in prison without charge but as word of the group's detainment spread via Amnesty's vast e-mail network, pressure on Chinese officials to release them peaked.

Ced Simpson, the executive director of Amnesty International New Zealand, keeps in constant touch with his Nepalese colleagues via the internet.

"Notwithstanding powercuts, the internet has become a powerful means of communication for human rights activists within Nepal who are no longer at the mercy of unreliable postal systems to keep in touch."

Gun safety advocate Philip Alpers is not comfortable with the activist label, but the veteran campaigner for tighter gun control measures is part of a massive debate that is now being played out in cyberspace as well.

A full-time gun policy researcher, Mr Alpers spends a lot of time tracking down web-based facts and figures, but says the gun debate, like most contentious issues, is a minefield of misinformation online.

"The web displays sound, evidence-based material alongside an awful lot of nonsense."

Mr Alpers points to the lavish website of the US National Rifle Association, the powerful organisation for gun-loving Americans.

With streaming video and e-mail news alerts, the site acts as its own media outlet, dodging the mainstream media where the organisation's message is not well received.

"This is narrow casting in the web age - a small, committed audience tuning in to minority views from an organisation chasing its dollars by televangelism. Normal editorial principles and balance don't apply," says Mr Alpers.

Anti-gun sites like Million Mom March raise awareness of the fight for "sensible gun laws, safe kids."

Links:


Electrohippies Collective

Greenpeace

Greenpeace's virtual supermarket

US National Rifle Association

Million Mom March

Fight against the fast food king

Boycotting internet spam

Campaign action without borders

A campaign against smoking

The radical environmental journal

A platform for prison issues

A campaign vehicle for the disabled

Activism news from around the web