When you are monitoring a specific incident or on an on-going basis you should immediately:

• Record what happens: who/what/where/when on an incident sheet
• Concentrate on the most serious abuses
• Focus on any group that is targeted for particular treatment.

You should take the following follow-up action:

1. Make sure that people have got an attorney if this is appropriate (for example, if someone has been arrested or killed).
2. File all your monitoring reports/statements/photographs.
3. Review the available facts and decide what type of action you or your organisation should take. For example:
   • should there be an immediate full investigation
   • do you need to collect further evidence for example, by taking statements from witnesses or victims
   • is the complaint so common that your report forms part of a documentation of the facts for possible follow-up action later on
4. Enter the facts into a simple system for storing information. These statistics can be very useful for different reasons, for example, when you are working out your priorities as an organisation (what issues you want to focus on), when you are meeting decision-makers in government (to put pressure on individuals), when you are meeting with possible donors, and so on.
5. Organise a press conference if this is appropriate or write a report about what has happened and send this to the press.

(See: Checklist, Monitoring follow-up)