How can have been rights be respected in the time of krona bias and countries are accused of using the fight against the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on peoples freedoms but ill difficult is it to balance that fight and basic rights this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program im Richelle Carey the coronavirus restrictions are meant to save lives but for authoritarian leaders they can be an excuse to adopt repressive measures and the covert 1000 emergency is fast becoming a human rights crisis thats the warning from the un secretary general antonio terrace is highlighted a rise in hate speech the targeting of vulnerable groups and heavy handed security responses is also said there is discrimination in the way Public Services are being delivered to tackle the pandemic the un says aggressive cyber policies are increasingly being used Journalists Health workers and activists are being targeted for terrorist in specifically name countries violating human rights heres what he had to say in his video message the rising get new national news. Ultimate dirty in islam and the pushback against human rights in some countries the crazies can provide the pretext with top repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the bend them in the zs and acceptable more than ever governments must be transparent response eve in the countable city expats and press for the critical Civil Society organizations of the private. Every simple rules to play we must ensure that any emergency measures including states of emergency and legal bullshit necessary and nondiscriminatory if a specific focus and duration and take the least intrusive approach possible to protect probably kills the end says its her save reports of rights being abused in several countries south africa and Security Officers are accused of using disproportionate force to impose restrictions particularly in informal settlements and police are investigating officers over allegations of murder rape and corruption and the philippines 120000 people were arrested for violating a curfew the u. N. Describes the countrys response as highly militarized online surveillance and habitation and detention of doctors and journalists have been reported in china the u. S. And some European Countries for allegedly refusing to provide shelter to migrants to prevent the spread of covert 19. Lets bring in our guests now and bangkok we have Anna Karen Jaffer shes the deputy regional director at United Nations women and amman we have turn less khatab and frederick roski also in bangkok he is the director for the asia and Pacific Program at the International Commission of jurists welcome to all of you so the secretary general he did not want to name countries but we are naming countries because we have to have this discussion and i want to start in china specifically so the doctor that basically tried to blow the whistle and about how how severe this this plant this at the time not necessarily a pandemic was ended up getting a visit from police and ended up dying later frederick i want to start with you how would you characterize the actions of china during that event during the spread of this virus and the aftermath well look i think as we as we look across the region including china you know we see the governments that are normally inclined to take authoritarian or militarized approaches to things taking them in this case and its not a great surprise that theyre trying to try to suppress information about the virus in the early days nor is it a surprise that they took action against the doctor and others at that early stage this is this is a weakness in the way we operate in this part of the world and its a weakness in the authoritarian impulse to suppress Bad Information. Its that kind of lack of transparency that that can be dangerous i mean fortunately in fortunately its unfortunately in a case like this a virus of this of this scale you simply cant you simply cant suppress that information its going to spread the information is going to spread the virus is going to spread and i hope that. I hope that a lesson has been has been learned here and we are seeing more transparency and more communication and more sharing of information across the region now. It was a terrible start was a terrible beginning to 2 the 1st government response to this and yes youre right this is obviously it tends to be an attempt to control the message to control any Bad Information about a particular country but in the long run it often ends up backfiring does it not why do why do governments and regimes continue to behave this way when it comes to Something Like this fredricka yes well that this is our message over and over again which is at a time like this the most important thing is is that government institutions have credibility that people trust them that the Public Trust Law enforcement they trust policymakers they trust Public Health officials that kind of response nontransparency suppression of speech. Overreaching states of emergency these are all things that are going to diminish public trust and our bench are ultimately going to undermine the legitimate Public Health. Goals of the response so i do think people are learning that in this case a little bit too late but our message is that starting from the beginning to a human rights compliant approach framing your Public Policy or law policy responses in human rights and within the framework thats provided by International Law is ultimately going to improve the outcomes of the Public Health outcomes improve the public trust in government institutions and you know i cant i cant emphasize that enough i think i think considering complying with human rights is going to build public trust rather than break it down and you know this is a this is a message we keep hearing over and over again i want to pick up that point that you made about public trust so there has been a lot of am. Its been difficult sometimes to get people to do what the government ask is supposedly in the name of safety because people just dont sometimes trust their government they dont trust the information theyre getting have you seen governments that are really weaponized saying fake news to try to because of that theyre trying to get a certain action out of out of people but they just dont trust or believe their own leaders. Well yes i think in the middle east weve had. A few different kind of reactions to the covered 19 pandemic in egypt there was an attempt to keep a lid on information and eventually information came out and the government reacted in a very brutal way and has kept many of the political journalists and others a human rights activist in prison in jordan they tried their kind of a mix they tried them a Strong Security clampdown on lockdown on people but at the same time the Prime Minister and the minister have came across on television in a very pleasant way in a very gentle human way to try to explain to people that this is for their own interest and i think they did a good job to a certain degree in jordan in in the palestine israel also you saw a different reactions for example netanyahu use the pandemic to clobber a coalition thats quite quite bad in terms of an exaggeration and trying to to change the air high court of israel and the palestinian areas we saw the Prime Minister did he did a good job in controlling and their discipline was quite their high so Different Countries had different reactions but youre right that if people dont trust their government thats one of the biggest problems you have and in a pandemic or an emergency people need to have that anchor they need to know that they can trust that person who comes on every day every day and tell them what to do in order to follow that lead then you would need to trust their government and care and the effect that this pandemic is having on everyone is not equal it is in a lot of cases its worse for the poor its worse for people of color and in particular it has been a horrific time for women and the cases of Domestic Violence have spiked and countries all the around the world tell me what youre seeing so indeed as we have seen around the world ask countries are employing this risk. Measures lockdowns quarantines and so on of course it means that for millions of women they end up locked up and locked in together with their abuser we know that one 3rd of women will experience violence at some point in her life and largely by an intimate partner and so of course when the strain on families there is reduced access to mobility of duce access to services then we have a horrific situation whereby women are more exposed to violence but at the same time have less access to the very people who would normally help them their friends their neighbors to Family Members Police Health Services so this is really a critical challenge to make sure that in this response as Health Systems are so thinly stretched and in many cases diverting their attention away from these critical regular services that victims and survivors of violence need that they do not. Do it to the extent that these surveys are not available because we know that they are lifesaving they make a huge difference and they must be available as part of the response so so what of that i mean obviously there are groups within the anti Domestic Violence the social Justice Movement that are trying to be responsive that are doing what they can to help but what were all should governments be playing at this i mean there are many governments that are passing stimulus packages with money for this money for that are you saying that there should be that that should be part of those types of packages absolutely and of course we havent. Yet talked about the Economic Impact of this but we know also women are more at risk of course of losing their jobs of losing their income and they must be a part of the economic stimulus to make sure that the packages are actually reaching the most Vulnerable Women the migrants the small entrepreneurs to women in agriculture to Domestic Workers these are the one who of course are so all of a percentage in these sectors that are now being the most affected as a having them really benefit and tap into these stimulus act. Ages is absolutely critical but governments can do more than that the that can continue of course to invest in these services and we are working with governments around the world to find virtual ways to provide that support we know will be the Critical Role of hotlines we know that there is a need to maintain and find a safe house saying in safe ways we know that where women are placed in corteen centers for example they need to be separated from potential abuse surface so that they are not further victimized so these are all areas where we are working with governments around the region to make sure that in the response we are not inadvertently putting women at increased risk and that were actually taking the opportunity now as we shift into the recovery to actually tackle these just deemed the road to gender inequality which of course as we know not divided by this pandemic that existed in all of the societies in our region and beyond beforehand but of course are magnified in this very challenging context that that we are all in frederick and karen mention Migrants Migrants and refugees obviously were were already just in a at a very bad way for years now and camps various camps around the world what is happening at some of these communities how much more at risk are they and as these governments have these you know repressive measures what effect does that have on them. It was those communities are particularly vulnerable for a whole bunch of Different Reasons they are subject to discrimination zina phobia we can see some some terrible things. Coming into public view in. Anti muslim language coming from government officials in india we have internal Migrant Workers and Migrant Workers that are trying to return to their countries are. Especially vulnerable right now in india youve got 400000000 Informal Sector workers many of whom simply cant abide by Strict Lockdown rules for various reasons some lag shelter many lack access to food in many countries they also fall outside of much of the social safety net that exists they they dont have access to Public Services and Government Services in the best of times and right now thats even less likely so there are. Also intersections of conflict right so youve got. Refugee communities working a community in bangladesh enormous vulnerabilities there. People fleeing from myanmar trying to reach other parts of the region that are now shut down so i think theres also you know there are short term and long term issues here as well were trying to deal with the immediate emergencies that these communities are facing but theres also a real danger that we see impacts on longer term policy you know we were already in a state of the world where immigration policy was becoming more restricted more draconian and we need to make sure that the outcomes of this period of history are that we realize that those policies are going to create more problems than theyre going to solve and we dont end up in a situation where some of these prejudices and some of the actions that are being taken by governments now hard. To you know even worse kind of prejudicial discriminatory anti immigrant anti my group calls us ok so you talk about anti immigrant that thats actually where i was going next oh let me ask you about that it would seem that when you talk about countries that are that are going overboard perhaps when it comes to oppressive measures and you would be thinking dictatorships that obviously this whats at risk are a lot of democracies here that that seem to be really really pushing boundaries that the us and the to kill or has President Donald Trump has now an immigration ban and place that that may or may not really be affected when it comes to containing this has obviously already you know hundreds of thousands of cases in the u. S. What concern do you have about some of these emigration bans well look you know the problem is that what it called it has done is its exacerbated existing issues its and its shined a light weight on policies that are cross have been destructive from the beginning i mean the truth is that we have a set of principles that we can use to to shape sensible policy i mean a cross the border ban on immigration particularly if its aimed at particular religious or ethnic groups is absolutely an acceptable but but you can carve a reasonable policy out of basic rule of law principles that the restrictions are prescribed by law theyre necessary theyre proportionate the nondiscriminatory theyre based on evidence and in a context like this countries are shutting down but borders are shutting down but this has to be done in a way that is that abides by those basic rule of law principles and particularly arent are just going to jury based on on ok let me. End with religion let me bring bring it out into this oh so what do you have any concerns about some of these immigration bands that were saying under the guise of you know protecting citizens where. I want to talk also about the women issue because in georgia and other countries kind of in direct result of the lockdown is the courts who are closed down most lawyers were not able to go to their offices and as you said the numbers of Domestic Violence cases are on the rise yet theres really no remedies but on the immigrant issue there in jordan for example we have 2 kinds of problems one is the migrant laborers we have almost 700000. 00 egyptian laborers many of them do day labor i mean they get paid for the day that they work and for like 40 days they havent worked and theres no income and they cant go back to egypt and so theyre stuck and out of no fault of their own so thats one problem the Syrian Refugees on the other hand seem to be taken care of by the United Nations the camps and the other is are quite theyre. Resilient seems to be covered 19 we havent heard a single case i dont know how much testing there has been but it seems that it hasnt spread so well and that thank god in the refugee camps over there is about 1200000 Syrian Refugees in jordan so far we havent heard of any cases of infection so thats kind of good news but there is worry that. The migrants and immigrants could be vulnerable communities in the future and i care and i mean by virtue of the fact that a pandemic is happening there due to the different rules whether theyre temporary or whatever to try to get a handle on things i mean thats thats just life that. How do you get that balance right to get people to do what is what is safe for them without being oppressive i mean that is that is a difficult balance for leaders that are trying to do it right at least. Thats right and i think it with that there are a few things that can help governments to really start the balance the 1st and i think this is very critical is having access to solid data and information who is affected how are they effected disaggregated by sex by age by migrants that is by disability whatever it might be and then you know where you need to target your efforts let me on this one second i want to say one thing up so i think thats a great point so basically youre saying there doesnt necessarily need to be a heavy handed measure for the your entire country if you actually have a handle on what and who it is youre dealing with. What i meant was that if we know who is who is affected then we know how we can provide that support in the recovery phase so for example if we know that women are more likely to lose their jobs then we know that the financial stimulus would need to provide and target those women for example i think people understand that there are restrictions of movement that there are Public Health measures that governments need to take but the key thing as fair to mention is that we do it in the nondiscriminatory way and that we make sure that we have services there are available to everyone without discrimination that we have testing that is available to everyone without discrimination that we have women for example who are facing victims of violence that they are able to get the support that they need that no one escapes in violence is targeted for breaking. A lockdown order for example and of course particularly when it comes to migrants as fredrik mentioned we know that women migrants are probably the most marginalized of them all because they are predominantly in the Informal Sector where they may not have labor rights they may not have access to pensions and support where theyre often living in the homes of the employer where even their employer leaves their legal limbo or they might not be able to move around which can further expose their risk of violence so really having the dates of who is affected to know how we can support them. Is essential and of course having clear information and nondiscriminatory approaches based on human rights frederick how concerned are you that that some governments particularly whats happening with victor orban of hungary that some governments some leaders are just going to grab power and never let go even when this is over. Well i mean weve seen weve seen this have been on the war on terror youve seen this happen other contacts and we have a lot of concern that were going to see similar things here you know look at. At the moment you know were having a rest of prodemocracy activists focus appearing in protests from a year ago. These are happening at a time when its quite easy for the government to. To intervene without concern about protests you have a state of emergency in the philippines which you mentioned earlier is quite militarized we have some concerns in thailand they have a bad history of over reaching in states of emergency. We have cambodia which is particularly absurd because a state of emergency was called there theres hardly any more power to grab for that government. But but you know there are also ways as i mentioned before to take these actions in a sensible and law abiding way new zealand appears to be doing a pretty good job they examine the details are many as there are. Germany as well and you know new zealand these are places that are accustomed to using these tools. Theyve used them judiciously and proportionately although its pretty extreme i mean theyre also putting enormous limitations on freedom of movement. Other freedoms and at the same time you know i have to say you know our concern is about this overreach and the threats to the rule of law which are very real. You know i dont i think what i think its been proven so far that you dont need an authoritarian state to do is effectively there are plenty of democratic governments that are imposing restrictions the population is it i find it extraordinary how people are buying by social distancing and other measures under very difficult circumstances and i think theres been the human species as showed an enormous amount of collective power under straight at this moment but i do think theres an enormous danger and especially in this region that that governments are going. To try and rate some of these emergency measures into into law and policy that will extend well beyond the this initial period and the fact that were likely to be with called it one way or another for quite some time means that you know were going to have this were going to have to keep an eye on this theres going to be a struggle. For the next year or longer you know and we will and keep an eye on it and we hope you all will as well and will join us again to discuss this thank you very much for joining us i appreciate it thanks to our guests and a carriage out for us to tape and private and thank you for watching as well you can see the program again at any time got our web site aljazeera talk offer for the discussion got our Facebook Page thats a spec dot com for slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter or handle asked at it and story for me or shall carry on the entire team africa. Her her. 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As the world fights the corona pandemic or learning more about this every day its a new adventure and join our Global Community its how we come to be able to fight answering your questions can i just honestly dont understand me directly thats coming on on you tube as you are saying im concerned about the front line phone aetheric quiet and not keeping you up to date i mean seeing countries beaten back and beaten back successfully the street all know just 0. Understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the loved so no matter how many take it will bring you the news and Current Affairs that matter to you. In a war torn city in iraq a magic documents the stories of the survivors recording bare hopes and dreams for a peaceful future after american troops withdrawal. But the conflict is far from over. He turns the camera on himself when i so take control and his family off forced to flee no where to hide a witness documentary on aljazeera. Hello again peter will be here in doha with your top stories from aljazeera more not lives have been lost to the coronavirus pandemic on u. S. Soil than all of the americans killed during the vietnam war a tally by Johns Hopkins University Shows the death toll beyond 58300 and more than a 1000000 people have now been infected mike hanna has more from washington there were 58000 People Killed in the vietnam war that was over a 10 year period the death rate weve seen in the u. S. Is basically in the last few months more
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