Digitalisation: First online database on human rights launched

HRCP compiles archive based on newspaper clippings and documents.

ISLAMABAD:

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) launched the first online searchable database archive comprising documents and data on human rights issues and democratic development in the country on Saturday.

The online archive makes research material accessible in a faster, more efficient way, said HRCP Secretary General IA Rehman during a briefing on the occasion. He added that researchers can now benefit from this resource from all over the world and the project will strengthen monitoring, documentation and dissemination of human rights issues in the country. It will facilitate, in particular, hundreds of students, journalists, writers, civil society activists and researchers.

The online digital archive is free for users who can search documents and news on select subjects by entering keywords in the search box on the website. The database comprises both Urdu and English documents and news clipping. The HRCP archival website is distinct from other popular search engines like Google because it gives focused results on particular subjects and events in Pakistan in a chronological order.

Currently, the electronic archival database contains more than 600,000 records on 72 subjects from January 1, 2006 to July 30, this year. The database is being updated and expanded.

HRCP developed the archive in collaboration with Geneva-based Department For International Development, which helped initiate the project and Danish aid agency, DANIA, which later provided funds to continue the digitalisation.

A link to the HRCP archive has been added to the story.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2012.