HuriSearch

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HuriSearch ( Hu man ri ghts Search ) is a search engine for human rights that is independent of political and economic interests and is operated by HURIDOCS ( Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems ), an organization for human rights information and documentation.

The search engine (as of 07/2007) has indexed over 3000 websites of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch and Anti-Slavery International with 3.5 million pages in over 70 languages. The index is updated every 24 hours, for non-governmental organizations every eight days. After a beta phase (since July 2003), the search engine was officially launched on December 1, 2006 by the UN in Geneva. She works with the Apache Software Foundation's Lucene search technology . The search engine will u. a. funded by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw, as well as initiatives by the Dutch and Norwegian foreign ministries.

search

The search interface is available in eight languages, in addition to German, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, Korean and Chinese. A semantic analysis automatically shows related terms. In addition to the "simple search", HuriSearch provides an "advanced search" that allows you to enter titles, countries, organizations (non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, national human rights institutions, intergovernmental organizations), keywords and document types (HTML, plain text, PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint).

HuriSearch justifies its project with the imprecise search possibilities of large search engines and the greater trust of the "community" for a search engine that was created by human rights activists:

  • Completeness: Major search engines cooperate with governments in unknown ways and block or censor unwanted content.
  • Pretexts: Governments cite good intentions such as fighting crime to prevent the free flow of information. The line between “good” and “bad” websites is blurring.
  • Unwanted results: Filtered result lists are not useful in a search in the fight against crime. However, research can also receive advertisements or links to offers with clear content. HuriSearch manually selects indexed websites.
  • Ranking: The ranking based on link popularity works towards the mainstream and neglects unknown providers such as national or regional human rights organizations. HuriSerach also values ​​minority opinions.
  • Internationality: The most important search engine operators are based in North America. While most Internet PCs are located outside of North America, their search technology is less suitable for multilingualism.

Remarks

  1. ↑ www.huridocs.org
  2. ↑ Patrick Müller: The human rights community creates its own search engine , In: Password , 03/2007, p. 34

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