Human rights organization targeted with cyber attack

The website of Survival International – a human rights organization that campaigns for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples – has been knocked offline last week by a DDoS attack they suspect to have been organized either by the Indonesian or the Botswana authorities.

“This attack comes one week after Survival International reported on a video of Indonesian soldiers torturing Papuan tribal people, and four weeks after calling for tourists to boycott Botswana over the long-running persecution of the Kalahari Bushmen,” it said in a statement issued by the organization.

According to IT Web, other organizations’ websites that hosted or linked to the torture video have allegedly also been attacked: Friends of People Close To Nature, West Papua Media Alerts, West Papua Unite, Asian Human Rights Commission, Free West Papua Campaign, and West Papua Unite.

Stephen Corry, Survival International’s director, claims that this wasn’t the work of “a couple of geeks in a shed; it’s an expensive and sophisticated attack amounting to cyber terrorism.”

Dr. Jeff Ramsay, Botswana Government Communication and Information System’s secretary, says that his country’s government wasn’t behind the attack, claiming that Botswana doesn’t possess the capabilities necessary for launching such attacks.

Survival International’s website is back online and continues to bring attention to the plight of the Kalahari Bushmen and other tribal peoples, and organizing the boycott against Botswana diamonds.

I must say one thing: if either of those governments backed the attacks, they quite missed the mark. They maybe downed a site for a few hours or days, but this brought their questionable actions to the attention of a lot more people than those sites usually reach.