Amnesty International: Governments exploit coronavirus to restrict freedom of expression

Her report was published today, Tuesday (19/10) Amnesty International, with which he complains that many governments around the world have taken advantage of his pandemic coronavirus to raise “unprecedented” obstacles to freedom of expression and silence their critics.

Combined with a wave of misinformation, these oppressive measures in many cases made it difficult for citizens to access accurate coronavirus information, although these were necessary to address it as early as the beginning of 2020, said the human rights organization. “Throughout the pandemic, governments have launched an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression,” said Razat Kosla, an Amnesty International official.

“Communication channels have been targeted, social media has been censored and the press has been shut down,” while “journalists and health professionals have been silenced and imprisoned.”

Amnesty International: Some of the countries denounced by the NGO

According to Amnesty, the lack of information caused by these government measures was an aggravating “factor” for the covid-19 pandemic. According to the APE-MPE, Amnesty International specifically refers to case of China, where since February 2020 they have started more than 5,000 judicial investigations against individuals accused of “fabricating and deliberately spreading false and harmful information” about the nature and extent of the pandemic.

In Tanzania the government of the former president John Magoufouli, which has not ceased to degrade the severity of covid-19 and refused to take action to stem the spread of the pandemic, it passed laws banning and punishing the spread of “fake news” in order to restrict the media.

In Nicaragua authorities adopted legislation to combat cybercrime, which allowed them to to “punish those who criticize government policies” and “restrict freedom of expression.”

In Russia a law that severely punishes the spread of false coronavirus news is in danger of remaining in force even after the end of the pandemic, Amnesty International warned.

In addition to governments, non-governmental organizations also criticized social media which, according to her, did not do enough to deal with the misinformation. All this “makes it difficult for the public to be fully informed and to make decisions knowing their impact on her health,” Amnesty International said. Accurate information is “critical”, the NGO stressed, and to “address vaccination hesitation”.