AMPLIFIED VULNERABILITIES AND RECONFIGURED RELATIONS: COVID-19, TORTURE PREVENTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

The COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured personal, organisational and political landscapes in quite radical ways. This paper reflects on the differentiated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to it. We unpack some of the effects of the crisis on populations already subject to harassment, persecution and deprivation due to their marginal position in society or their resistance to state power. We illuminate how the current crisis is much more than a health crisis;the ways it exacerbates already existing deprivations;and how it might reveal hitherto unrecognised opportunities through which to make the world a more, rather than less, just and equitable place. Focus is on the way the crisis calls forth amplified forms of repression and consonantly amplified forms of vulnerability as well as reconfigured spaces for the operation of civil society organisations. We forward one key proposition, namely that while securitised responses to the crisis reveal an inherent conservatism, civil society responses reveal an agility and a capacity to innovate. While the inherent conservatism of securitised responses gives cause for serious concern, there is some hope to be found in the potential for innovation of civil society organisations. The revelation of humankind's shared vulnerability that is a feature of the crisis may serve as a springboard for the propagation of progressive change if we keep in mind the fundamentally human, and thus relational, nature of human rights and anti-torture work.

On conspiracy theories and their supporters

In the current intensely conducted debate about the corona pandemic and its consequences, numerous citizens have spoken out mistrusting the statements of politicians and scientists and claiming that the virus has been spread by malicious persons or hostile powers intentionally and out of selfish interests. Such conspiracy theories spread whenever people have to deal with surprising and frightening events. This article provides an overview of the history of conspiracy theories and explores the question of which persons are prone to conspiracy theories and for what reasons. From a psychodynamic perspective these are people who, partly from unconscious motives, tend to accuse others of having hostile intentions against which they have to defend themselves by force. From some parallels to conflictual psychotherapeutic relationship situations, initial suggestions can be derived for a constructive approach to conspiracy theory supporters in educational and political contexts. © 2020, Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.