This is a great, simple idea which could help solve a really serious problem.

The Natalia project is named after Russian human rights defender Natalia Estimerova who was abducted and murdered in 2009. The problem such campaigners face is difficulty in communicating their plight with the wider world; the regimes that they are protesting against often control access to media channels and suppress any negative stories, making it tough to let the world know that injustice is being done. Specifically, it means the individuals themselves are often at great risk from being silenced.
So the idea is to give such campaigners a physical ‘assault alarm’ that activates either when pushed or when forcibly removed. This triggers messages out to pre-designated contacts using mobile & social channels, and those contacts in turn are then able to spread the news.
It’s a wonderfully simple idea to create essentially continuous media scrutiny & thus make these protesters safer. Here is a really short video that explains a little more, and here’s their Facebook page.
(Via Adverblog).