DW: The pandemic as a pretext for restricting democratic rights

There are many violations of fundamental rights around the world: Overcrowded prisons in the Philippines, journalists detained in Zimbabwe, threats to humanitarian organizations in Mexico.

In their annual publication, Atlas of Civil Society, two NGOs, Civicus and Brot für die Welt (“Bread for the World”), document the international community’s performance in respecting human rights. This year, the Atlas of Civil Society is released for the fourth year and refers to 2020.

“2019 was a year of protest, a year in which an unusually large number of people wanted to take to the streets,” Dagmar Prouin, director of MKO Brot für die Welt, told a recent news conference. “This mobilization of the world continued in 2020, for example in the USA or Belarus. To these mobilizations were added the protests on the occasion of the pandemic, especially those who were in dire financial straits or wanted to protest the spread of corruption in their country. “In many countries, governments have responded by fighting not the causes of misery and corruption, but the protesters themselves.” Deutsche Welle article.

“Open societies” are few

As Atlas points out, 88% of the world’s population lives in closed or oppressive societies. Out of 196 countries in the world, only 42 are considered “open societies”, while some EU member states have a negative impact on human rights. In total, only 263 million people worldwide fully enjoy the constitutional freedoms provided in their country. Germany is considered an open society, as it does not restrict the activities of humanitarian organizations, allows mass gatherings and ensures access to free information. The “Atlas” considers that the violations of individual freedoms to deal with the pandemic are in line with the principle of proportionality. However, he criticized the general ban on the right of assembly, which had originally been imposed by the authorities, but was later revoked following a ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court.

The pandemic reveals weaknesses

In many countries, the coronavirus pandemic has acted as a catalyst or even a magnifying glass, “to reveal or make visible weaknesses that already exist in a system or regime,” said Zilke Pfeiffer, head of human rights at for the world. “There has been a tendency to cover up these weaknesses of the system with even more authoritarian reactions, which shock and awe the citizens.”

In the Philippines, for example, more than 100,000 people have been arrested on charges of failing to comply with pandemic restrictions. In El Salvador, another 17,000 were placed in organized “quarantine centers,” including a prominent human rights activist who was tested for coronavirus three weeks after her arrest. An important problem, points out the ‘Atlas of Civil Society’ is the intensifying police violence against citizens in general, but also against journalists in particular. A recent international survey of 400 journalists confirms cases of police violence in connection with pandemic restrictions in 59 countries. In Colombia, about 50 NGOs, in a joint statement, are stigmatizing the escalating violence by a police force, which is ‘militarizing’ more and more, as they typically report.

In many countries the pandemic gives the pretext to undermine democratic rights or to put pressure on activists and journalists. In Mexico, for example, a particularly dangerous country for journalists and human rights activists, activist Clemencia Salas Salazar was under police protection until 2020, but was abolished in March 2020 on the grounds that all available police forces should be to be utilized in the effort to combat the pandemic. Amnesty International reacted immediately. Finally, after three months, the authorities revoked their decision. The case of the ABS-CBN news station in the Philippines, the largest in the country, which had a particularly critical attitude towards the authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte, was different. Suddenly the authorities decided not to renew his license, which, as the “Atlas of Civil Society” points out, silences a reliable and objective source of information in the midst of a pandemic. The example of Cambodia is also considered extreme, where the government from 2020 passed a law to impose a state of emergency, although, according to official statistics, in this country there was not a single dead person from the coronavirus.

Few hopes for improvement

The “Atlas of Civil Society” leaves little room for optimism. Probably the opposite is happening, says the head of the NGO Brot für die Welt Dagmar Pruin, as “in 2020 we record a clear deterioration…”. However, there is a positive development, as more and more NGOs are present, trying to fill the gaps left by governments, working out creative solutions in times of pandemic. A typical example is the Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa (AS-PTA) in Brazil: the organization buys food from small producers, who due to the circumstances are unable to market their products, to distribute them on an occasional basis. employees, without a permanent contract or employment rights, who would not otherwise be able to support their families.