Human rights reports usually draw on a traditional human rights methodology, fact finding or documentation, with a view to identifying a violation, violator and remedy. Reports represent a technical, detail-led, and legal form of speaking truth to power, usually addressing governments and authorities. They build their argument through various sections – stating the problem, mapping the context, making detailed allegations, aligning the allegations to international law – to form of a list of recommendations addressing a target state or institution. Whilst such reports remain the foundation of human rights work and offer comprehensive analysis into human rights violations, they have significant limitations as to the audiences they can reach.

In this call, artists and activists are invited to respond to a particular human rights report by Amnesty International titled Under Protected and Over Restricted: The State of the Right to Protest in 21 European Countries (July 2024). The report ‘reveals a continent-wide pattern of repressive laws, use of unnecessary or excessive force, arbitrary arrests and prosecutions, unwarranted or discriminatory restrictions as well as the increasing use of invasive surveillance technology, resulting in a systematic roll back of the right to protest’. The report is part of Amnesty International’s global campaign called ‘Protect the Protest’.