Bard College Berlin students took part in hands-on training session on digital human rights investigations with Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps

Thirty-seven students from Bard College Berlin and the Hertie School took part in a hands-on training session on digital human rights investigations with Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps (DVC) on October 4–5. The session was led by BCB guest faculty Marija Ristic, who manages the DVC’s global work. Students learned how to discover, verify, and analyze open-source data to document human rights abuses, as well as strategies for staying safe and maintaining mental well-being while working with distressing content.

The Berlin sections of the DVC, coordinated at BCB by Fred Abrahams and at Hertie by Andrew Hastings and Ilke Zeyep Ucarer, are active since 2023. Students contributed to major investigations, including a Human Rights Watch report on Russian drone attacks in Ukraine, Amnesty International research into violations in Israel and Palestine and Mozambique, and supported work by the Iran Archive and UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran.

The Digital Verification Corps is a Amnesty International’s global network of eight partner universities that applies digital fact-finding methods to support active human rights investigations worldwide, including the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Cambridge; the University of Essex; Ibero University; and the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law.

Post Date: 10-09-2025