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	The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19 by UN News, Human Rights Watch, agencies   The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19, by António Guterres - Secretary General of the United Nations   From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic almost one year ago, it was clear that our world faced far more than a public health emergency. The biggest international crisis in generations quickly morphed into an economic and social crisis. One year on, another stark fact is tragically evident: our world is facing a pandemic of human rights abuses.   Covid-19 has deepened preexisting divides, vulnerabilities and inequalities, and opened up new fractures, including faultlines in human rights. The pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of our human family – and of the full spectrum of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. When any one of these rights is under attack, others are at risk.   The virus has thrived because poverty, discrimination, the destruction of our natural environment and other human rights failures have created enormous fragilities in our societies. The lives of hundreds of millions of families have been turned upside down – with lost jobs, crushing debt and steep falls in income.   Frontline workers, people with disabilities, older people, women, girls and minorities have been especially hard hit. In a matter of months, progress on gender equality has been set back decades. Most essential frontline workers are women, and in many countries are often from racially and ethnically marginalised groups.   Most of the increased burden of care in the home is taken on by women. Violence against women and girls in all forms has rocketed, from online abuse to domestic violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation and child marriage.   Extreme poverty is rising. Young people are struggling, out of school and often with limited access to technology.   The latest moral outrage is the failure to ensure equity in vaccination efforts. Just 10 countries have administered more than 75% of all Covid-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, more than 130 countries have not received a single dose.   If the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire in parts of the global south, it will mutate again and again. New variants could become more transmissible, more deadly and potentially threaten the effectiveness of current vaccines and diagnostics. This could prolong the pandemic significantly, enabling the virus to come back to plague the global north – and delay the world’s economic recovery.   The virus is also infecting political and civil rights, and further shrinking civic space. Using the pandemic as a pretext, authorities in some countries have deployed heavy-handed security responses and emergency measures to crush dissent, criminalise basic freedoms, silence independent reporting and restrict the activities of nongovernmental organisations.   Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, political activists – even medical professionals – have been detained, prosecuted and subjected to intimidation and surveillance for criticising government responses to the pandemic. Pandemic-related restrictions have been used to subvert electoral processes and weaken opposition voices.   At times, access to life-saving Covid-19 information has been concealed while deadly misinformation has been amplified – even by those in power.   Extremists – including white supremacists and neo-Nazis – have exploited the pandemic to boost their ranks through social polarisation and political and cultural manipulation.   The pandemic has also made peace efforts more difficult, constraining the ability to conduct negotiations, exacerbating humanitarian needs and undermining progress on other conflict-related human rights challenges.   Covid-19 has reinforced two fundamental truths about human rights. First, human rights violations harm us all. Second, human rights are universal and protect us all.   An effective response to the pandemic must be based on solidarity and cooperation. Divisive approaches, authoritarianism and nationalism make no sense against a global threat. With the pandemic shining a spotlight on human rights, recovery provides an opportunity to generate momentum for transformation. To succeed, our approaches must have a human rights lens.   The sustainable development goals – which are underpinned by human rights – provide the framework for more inclusive and sustainable economies and societies, including the imperative of healthcare for everyone.   The recovery must also respect the rights of future generations, enhancing climate action to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and protecting biodiversity. My Call to Action for Human Rights spells out the central role of human rights in crisis response, gender equality, public participation, climate justice and sustainable development.   This is not a time to neglect human rights; it is a time when, more than ever, human rights are needed to navigate this crisis in a way that will allow us to achieve inclusive and sustainable development and greater peace.   We are all in this together. The virus threatens everyone. Human rights uplift everyone. By respecting human rights in this time of crisis, we will build more effective and equitable solutions for the emergency of today and the recovery for tomorrow.   http://www.un.org/en/content/action-for-human-rights/index.shtml   Feb. 2021   Covid-19 triggers wave of free speech abuse. (Human Rights Watch, agencies)   At least 83 governments worldwide have used the Covid-19 pandemic to justify violating the exercise of free speech and peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said today.   Authorities have attacked, detained, prosecuted, and in some cases killed critics, broken up peaceful protests, closed media outlets, and enacted vague laws criminalizing speech that they claim threatens public health.   The victims include journalists, activists, healthcare workers, political opposition groups, and others who have criticized government responses to the coronavirus.   “Governments should counter Covid-19 by encouraging people to mask up, not shut up,” said Gerry Simpson, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “Beating, detaining, prosecuting, and censoring peaceful critics violates many fundamental rights, including free speech, while doing nothing to stop the pandemic.”   Governments and other state authorities should immediately end excessive restrictions on free speech in the name of preventing the spread of Covid-19 and hold to account those responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses, Human Rights Watch said.   The United Nations Human Rights Council in its session beginning February 22, 2021, should commission a new report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights focusing on states’ compliance with their human rights obligations in responding to Covid-19, including the impact of restrictions on free speech and peaceful assembly.   Human Rights Watch reviewed national government responses around the world to the Covid-19 pandemic and found that unlawful interference with free speech has been one of the most common forms of overreach. In some countries, violations were limited. In others, such as China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Vietnam, government violations affected hundreds or thousands of people.   In some countries, including Bangladesh, China, and Egypt, people remain in detention at the time of writing simply for criticizing government responses to Covid-19 months earlier.   They include Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old citizen journalist, who in December was sentenced to four years in prison by a Shanghai court for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” by traveling in February 2020 to Wuhan and reporting from there on the coronavirus outbreak. Officials have been force-feeding Zhang since she started a hunger strike soon after her detention in May and her health is deteriorating, her lawyer said.   “I spend every day in fear,” Zhang said before her conviction. “I am afraid when an Army officer threatens me. Or when the police tell me they’d beat me to death. Or when a friend warns me that the National Security Department is onto me. … I’m just documenting the truth. Why can’t I show the truth?”   Human Rights Watch identified the following trends:   Military or police forces in at least 18 countries physically assaulted journalists, bloggers, and protesters, including some who criticized government responses to Covid-19 such as insufficient healthcare funding, lockdowns, and a lack of masks and gloves for medical workers. Abuses include firing live ammunition at peaceful protesters, beating them at checkpoints, and assaulting them in detention, with apparent impunity. In most cases, these forces said they were enforcing Covid-19-related regulations. In Uganda, security forces also killed dozens of protesters.   Authorities in at least 10 countries have arbitrarily banned or broken up protests against government responses to Covid-19, in some cases citing social distancing concerns, or have used Covid-19 as a justification to disperse protests and other gatherings critical of government policies unrelated to the coronavirus. In all cases, the authorities intervened despite permitting other large gatherings.   Since January 2020, governments in at least 24 countries have enacted vague laws and measures that criminalize spreading alleged misinformation or other coverage of Covid-19, or of other public health crises, which the authorities claim threaten the public’s well-being. Governments can easily use imprecise laws as tools of repression. At least five countries have also criminalized the publication of alleged misinformation on a range of other topics, including public health.   Authorities in at least 51 countries have used laws and regulations adopted to prevent the spread of Covid-19, as well as counterterrorism and other measures pre-dating the pandemic, to arbitrarily arrest, detain, and prosecute critics of government responses to the coronavirus, or of policies unrelated to the pandemic, resulting in fines and imprisonment. Those targeted include journalists, bloggers and others posting online, opposition figures and activists, protesters, academics, healthcare workers, students, lawyers, cartoonists, and artists.   Using the new laws, laws pre-dating the pandemic, or without citing any laws, at least 33 governments have threatened critics, in some cases with prosecution, if they criticize the authorities’ response to the pandemic. Eight of these countries investigated, threatened, and dismissed medical staff for speaking publicly about the authorities’ response to the pandemic.   At least eight countries have also suspended or restricted the right to request and receive information from the authorities, including on public health matters. At least 12 countries have blocked specific Covid-19-related media reports or shut down media outlets for their reporting on the pandemic.   Governments are obligated to protect the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information of all kinds online and offline, including on public health. The right to freedom of expression is integral to the enjoyment of freedom of assembly, including for public protest.   Human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), permit restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly only if they are provided for by law, are strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve a legitimate aim, including the protection of national security, public order or public health, and morals, and are nondiscriminatory.   Other legitimate aims include the protection of the rights or reputation of others in the case of free speech, or, in the case of freedom of assembly, the protection of the “rights and freedom” of others.   When governments face a public emergency that “threatens the life of the nation” or “the independence or security” of a country, and they cannot achieve their public health or other public policy objectives by imposing only these restrictions, key international human rights treaties allow them temporarily to further restrict or even suspend some rights, including freedom of speech. They may do this by entering a derogation from their obligations.   In such cases, governments should declare a state of emergency, show why more “severe” restrictions are necessary, and provide for such restrictions in law with sunset clauses that will ensure the temporary nature of the exceptional restrictions. As with any limitation on rights, restrictions imposed under a derogation must be nondiscriminatory.   They should register these acts of derogation from their human rights obligations with the UN and, for states parties to either European or American regional instruments, with the Council of Europe or the Organization of American States, whose relevant bodies may assess the legitimacy of the derogations and monitor the restrictions.   Only 44 of the 83 countries that Human Rights Watch found to have breached freedom of expression or assembly rights have declared a state of emergency. However, none registered derogations relating to freedom of speech and only eight registered derogations relating to freedom of assembly.   Failing to register derogations makes it easier for governments to evade international oversight that could curb the abuse of extraordinary powers. Countries that are parties to the ICCPR and that declare states of emergencies without registering derogations nonetheless remain bound by international law governing them.   Governments also have an international obligation to provide the public with access to accurate information on health threats, including methods of preventing and controlling them. Disproportionate curbs on free speech can make it harder to counter misinformation about Covid-19, including conspiracy theories about false and dangerous treatments that have flourished on social media and offline.   “Excessive and sometimes violent crackdowns on critical speech by governments signify a perilous willingness to sideline a fundamental freedom in the name of countering Covid-19,” Simpson said. “The obligation of governments to protect the public from this deadly pandemic is not a carte blanche for placing a chokehold on information and suppressing dissent.”   Methodology   On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a “public health emergency of international concern” and on March 11 it declared the coronavirus a pandemic. Since then, Human Rights Watch has identified violations of the rights to freedom of expression and assembly in 83 countries, based on its own research, as well as outside sources including the Covid-19 Civic Freedom Tracker of the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law (ICNL) and European Center for Not-For-Profit Law (ECNL), reports by other nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations, and international and local media.   Human Rights Watch collaborated closely with ICNL, ECNL, and the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism in preparing this report, and shared all cases identified during the research with the ICNL for its tracker. The true extent of the abuses may be greater. Production of this report was supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Foundation.   Violence Against Journalists, Peaceful Protesters, Opposition Activists, Lawyers   Security forces or state officials in at least 18 countries have physically assaulted journalists and bloggers reporting on Covid-19-related policies, as well as protesters, opposition activists, and lawyers, including some who criticized government responses to Covid-19. In most cases, the security forces justified their excessive use of force by saying they were enforcing Covid-19 regulations.   * Access the report: http://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/11/covid-19-triggers-wave-free-speech-abuse http://www.icnl.org/coronavirus-response http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/22/human-rights-in-the-time-of-covid-a-pandemic-of-abuses-says-un-head http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/CivicSpace/Pages/ProtectingCivicSpace.aspx Visit the related web page
	From torture to ultraviolence: medical and legal implications by Gunisha Kaur The Lancet, Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights   Violent global conflict has forcibly displaced 79·5 million people worldwide, many of whom have experienced torture.   Although the systematic use of torture is not new, torture as experienced by refugees fleeing war and persecution has become increasingly brutal.   Indeed, in many parts of the world, the purpose of torture is no longer to teach a lesson or to extract a confession, but to embody cruelty in its most extreme form.   When appealing for refuge, asylum seekers describe experiencing violence that exceeds the standard definition of torture.   Medical and legal communities have yet to adopt adequate language to describe this purposeful, extreme violence.   The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo defines torture as the “deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason”.   Torture is the deliberate harm of a person by another, for reasons including political views, ethnic background, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, among others; torture is grounds for seeking asylum in another country.   The medical and legal communities now encounter violence beyond torture that is taking more extreme, brutal gradations. Here, in my view, our vocabulary falls short.   The word rape exists to describe a sexual act inflicted by one human on another without their consent, yet there is no standard language to describe the sexual abuse of children as young as 4 years as documented in refugee camps.   The word murder describes the killing of innocents by violent gangs in central America, but no word describes women who are skinned alive or who have their breasts and buttocks cut off in public simply as a demonstration of a gang's power.   The word persecution describes the targeting of innocent lives in war-ravaged areas, yet we do not have standard language to describe health attacks and targeting of hospitals and doctors who are helping the wounded in the Middle East.   This intensified violence has substantial medical and legal implications.   After World War 2, Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide to redefine extreme mass atrocities such as those perpetrated during the Holocaust.   In my view, the medical and legal communities now need a term to redefine the extreme torture that we medically document among refugee patients.   I propose the term ultraviolence. Ultraviolence defines extreme violence against an individual beyond torture, either in degree or in purpose. Ultraviolence has been seen before. In Punjab, India, in the 1980s, mothers from the Sikh community were made to watch as their children, as young as age 3 years, were tortured by the police.   During the massacre of Srebrenica in the 1990s, Muslim fathers and sons were forced to orally castrate one another.   In the 2000s, Yazidi girls and women were incorporated into a systematic system of sexual slavery by the Islamic State.   Today's ultraviolence, however, has become more noticeable in some refugee contexts: it is no longer the occasional case that health professionals see.   Appropriately defining violence against refugees has medical and legal importance. First, at their core, definitions are significant. Although violence and ultraviolence are gradations of the same exposure, they are crucially important to distinguish so that health-care providers can comprehend and treat the trauma of refugee patients.   Knowledge of the depth of violence helps a provider understand the potential health impacts of trauma. Individuals who are subjected to ultraviolence have experienced a major assault to their physical and psychological health, which can result in worse presentations of both physical and mental ill-health, such as disability, somatisation, and post-traumatic stress. This ultraviolence has implications for rehabilitation.   Defining the degree of violence assists health-care providers by directing trauma-informed treatment approaches.   Precision language is also important for legal arguments and judgments related to an individual's asylum application. Asylum seekers may be granted legal status if they have a well founded fear of returning to their country of origin. This process is partly based on an asylum seeker's documented evidence of persecution, which has become increasingly imperative as transnational border fortification intensifies.   However, with the amplified arbitrariness of ultraviolence, an asylum seeker may have a well founded fear of returning home without previous documented torture. For example, a Ugandan child may have feared for his life in the context of children being forcibly recruited as fighters and sex slaves by the Lord's Resistance Army, without specific documented trauma against himself.   Ultraviolence provides the necessary language to illustrate erratic, life-threatening violence that could provide compelling grounds for asylum even without a documented history of torture.   Beyond medical and legal implications, precise language assists in understanding vicarious trauma, that is experienced second-hand by people including the children of a person who has survived ultraviolence or health-care workers who have provided care to these patients.   Vicarious trauma might contribute, for example, to traumatised children themselves experiencing future psychiatric illness, family instability, or substance use disorders or to health-care provider burnout from the psychological weight of caring for people who have been exposed to ultraviolence.   Discerning and describing the magnitude of trauma through precise language can facilitate recognising and potentially mitigating aftershocks in family members and health-care providers.   Finally, the use of specific language has policy implications. In many countries, public policy on refugees hinges on using trauma as a border control strategy, which has led to detention, family separation, and dangerous living conditions for asylum seekers.   Comprehending violence as increasingly ultraviolent may redirect the approach of public policy to recognise that most asylum seekers leave their countries of origin because of push factors, such as threats to their lives or families, rather than pull factors, such as better economic opportunities.   Ultraviolence describes the increasing brutality or arbitrariness of violence, beyond the characterisation of torture, and provides relevant context for the medical and legal treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. Visit the related web page
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