A/HRC/35/28 governments and business — levels the playing field and opens up opportunities for more diverse interests to shape decisions and governance. Civil society is an important source of both information and skills, often filling gaps left by other sectors and fostering creative and novel approaches to addressing concerns. 73. Civil society groups may seek to raise awareness of an issue in order to galvanize public opinion and demand accountability. This was the case with the peaceful assemblies organized by Bersih in Malaysia, which highlighted electoral flaws and offences and helped to sensitize Malaysians to the need for “clean” elections.62 Similarly, information leaks by whistle-blowers can expose original documentation that raises awareness about problems that may have been relatively unknown to the public, such as the extent of mass surveillance and the collection of private citizens’ data. Civil society groups such as Witness also provide training to people around the world on how to use video safely, ethically and effectively to expose human rights abuses and fight for human rights. 63 Furthermore, Amnesty International’s campaigns for the release of prisoners of conscience have served as both a beacon of hope and a model for civil society action since 1961. 64 74. Civic action may have a deeper aim of sparking or changing the prevailing narrative or discourse or bringing to light obscure or repressed information. The Documentation Center of Cambodia, in the belief that knowledge of past events is crucial to preventing future atrocities, has engaged in a long campaign advocating for the teaching of the Khmer Rouge period in schools. In 2011, the Ministry of Education agreed to include this period of history in the national school curriculum. 65 In Indonesia, civil society groups stage literary and film festivals to promote discussion about the State-sponsored purges in 1965/-1966 that led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians. 66 Moreover, civil society work to abolish the death penalty has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of countries that have outlawed the practice. In 1977, the death penalty was banned in only 16 countries;67 today, roughly 140 countries have abolished it in law or practice. 68 75. Knowledge may be directed at helping organizations develop effective working methods. An example of this is approach is the New Tactics in Human Rights programme, which has been credited with helping human rights activists in various countries become more effective through strategic thinking and tactical planning. For example, a group in Tunisia has used skills and resources from the New Tactics programme to carry out a successful campaign to make public transport accessible to persons with disabilities. 69 76. Sharing information, knowledge and skills can be a means to build consensus on issues such as normative standards in a particular field. For example, data collected since 2009 by the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors, a platform for exchanging best practices, resources and lessons learned on election monitoring, has fed into a widely endorsed set of norms and principles to guide election observation. These norms have helped to counter pushback against nonpartisan election monitoring activities in closed societies.70 Civil society’s prison reform work also played a central role in informing the revised version of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules), which were released in 2015.71 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 Contribution from Bersih (Malaysia). See https://witness.org/. See www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/prisoners-and-people-at-risk/prisoners-of-conscience. See https://www.usip.org/publications/2015/04/cambodias-schools-breaking-silence-over-killingfields. See https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/indonesian-writers-festival-forced-to-cancelevents-linked-to-1965-massacre. See www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/. See www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/04/death-penalty-2015-facts-and-figures/. Contribution from Center for Victims of Torture (United States). Contribution from the National Democratic Institute. See www.penalreform.org/news/mandela-rules-on-prisoner-treatment-adopted/. 17