An Interview Series on the Political Implications of the Pandemic
By Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk
Over the summer of 2020, Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk conducted the ‘Conversing COVID’ interview series on the political implications of the pandemic. Now that many countries are experiencing another wave of infections and the world has learned more about the virus, Fabiana and Gilles are launching a second interview series: ‘COVID Continues’. They will speak to experts from different backgrounds on the (geo)political, security, and societal consequences of this pandemic.
For this second episode, we spoke with Giancarlo Fiorella, Investigator and Trainer for Latin America at Bellingcat. Giancarlo is also a PhD student at the University of Toronto, writing his thesis on protest policing in Venezuela, focusing on the role of civilian armed groups. During our conversation, we discussed the benefits of open source investigation as well as the impact of the pandemic in Venezuela.
‘OSINT investigation is very beneficial when it comes to investigating human rights abuses, war crime or crimes against humanity.’
‘Some Venezuelan human rights organisations denounced the demonization of refugees by State officials.’
‘Considering the reaction we all had to the pandemic, I am really skeptical that we will be able to deal with the climate change crisis in an orderly effective manner as a species’
December 14th, 2020
November 18th, 2020
For this first episode of our second interview series, we interviewed Jonáš Syrovátka, Program Manager at the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI). Mr. Syrovátka primarily works on projects concerning Russian influence activities in the Czech Republic. During our conversation we discussed the ‘infodemic’ amid the pandemic.
‘Conspiracy theories will become especially dangerous when there are specific topics to interact with, such as a vaccine. This is an opportunity for engagement with pre-exisiting scepticism towards vaccination.’
‘Conspiracy websites tried to incorporate the EU's handling of the pandemic into the broader narritve of the EU's failure.’