Warning the Public Health emergency is quickly becoming a human rights crisis how many limitations are people willing to accept in order to fight a threat like coronavirus. Kenneth roth welcome to conflict zone. Thanks for having me. There are very immediate needs amid this coronavirus pandemic hundreds of thousands have already died a qana means have been hit hard many people are losing their jobs some are even trying to figure out how to put food on the table in these extraordinary times how do you put a human rights at the top of the agenda. Well i think its important sara to note that human rights allow certain extraordinary governmental powers in time of a genuine public emergency or crisis like were facing so you know nobody objects from a human rights perspective to the efforts to limit our trouble to inforce social distancing to do the things that are necessary and proportionate to our Public Health needs but when autocrats say oh we need you does violate your human rights left and right in order to protect you thats a very dangerous message its wrong not only as a matter of principle but it actually undermines our Public Health and thats something that Human Rights Watch has been finding over and over that you know when autocrats censor or or grab power or take various other steps that are antithetical to human rights it actually puts us in a worse place in Public Health terms you mentioned autocrats there and id like to bring you to what the un special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights said she said the following we could have a parallel epidemic of authoritarian and repressive measures following close if not on the heels of this Health Epidemic how big is the threat. I think the threat is absolutely real i mean i think back to the terrorist attacks of september 11th 2001 you know there are many parallels to that time and today in each case there was a genuine threat to Public Safety people called on their governments to protect them and what we saw then is in a many governments overreach in the name of protection they completely undermine human rights in ways that didnt make us any safer so you know it was hard then to roll back some of those steps you know today if you look at the United States we still have one ton of the bush cia torturers were never prosecuted you know we still have large portions of the surveillance state that the National Security agency created we still have killing by targeted you know by drones targeted killing by them so you know these are the kinds of threats that we could face today but the flipside is that frankly this is also an opportunity to show that respect for human rights is essential to an effective Public Health strategy and i mean let me give an example going to the origins of this pandemic if we look at what the Chinese Government did in harlem at the outbreak of the epidemic they censored rather than heated thank handful of doctors who tried to sound the alarm they said look at you know we dont know whats happening but there is a new leaf will spread out there they call that a sars like corona virus and what the chinese authorities did is you know rather than listen to them rather than act they suppress them because this is the kind of bad news that beijing doesnt like to hear there was a right and study by the university of southampton that you know if those 3 weeks of not being wasted it was 3 weeks during which literally millions of people traveled through was left to han when the virus really went global if not for those wasted 3 weeks by the end of february the prevalence of the virus would have been 95 percent less than it was so actually shows you that censorship kills it literally is apathetic of the Public Health and i want to get to more of that censorship and especially the chinese handling of the crisis but i. I want to continue 1st with the authoritarian parent power grab that you mentioned for example in hungary and ask you because hungary secretary of International Communication actually attacked you. Saying the following while the director of Human Rights Watch gazes at his navel in geneva fretting about authoritarian rot the hungry and people look for a steady hand at the rudder to navigate this storm doesnt have a point i mean contrary i mean that you know thats just the rhetoric he gives and what viktor orban the Prime Minister of hungary is done is used as coronavirus to create the European Unions 1st dictatorship im he is the power now to rule by decree to sideline parliament and there is no need for another election ever until Parliament Approves that and his Party Controls parliament this is a dictatorship pure and simple and so you know lets look how that dictatorship is doing im a Human Rights Watch has been in the process of studying how gary in hospitals and what we found is that while orban takes a very generous stabilisation funds provided by the European Union and uses them to build football stadiums to pay off his cronies i mean quite literally. The hospitals are disaster people need to bring their own toilet paper people are being it was thrown out in the street because theyre not currently the coronavirus patient they are you know this illustrates what happens when you have an unaccountable government and thats what that door about is so if youre ok and. If youre right can where is the domestic outcry because the public overwhelmingly supports these emergency measures. Well you know what emergency measures another thing over the public overwhelmingly supports social distancing restrictions on travel i mean every democracy in the world is doing that of course thats appropriate what they dont support is power grabs and censorship and selfserving stops of the sort of the orban it im the most recent indication we have is when there were you know municipal they oral elections recently or bounce party last budapest in the leading 15 cities so its not as if one here in public is happy with this but orban has been you know censoring the media undermining the possibility of the courts to check him so you know when the public is able to speak out it expresses its disapproval but nobody wants to see a dictatorship go to over over their head when that dictatorship as it always does serves the political interests of the sudan or so on what is your strategy to help promote human rights in countries like hungry when the majority of the population supports these measures how do you watch us and you know i guess i mean i think i have to differ with you that the majority of the population doesnt support a dictatorship you know the population supports the uncontroversial things social distancing struggle restrictions of course but a dictatorship no and so what we have been trying to do for example with the European Union is to ask you know why does the European Union continue to provide extraordinarily generous subsidies to this trojan horse within european democracy you know why for example is the European Peoples Party the center right alliance in the European Parliament why does it continue to treat. Or bounce party is a member or rather than to formally expelled it suspended it but it didnt expel and you know why it is the European Unions budget to you to provide so these are the kinds of things that can be done but frankly so far european political leaders have been quite timid they issued a socalled protest when or by established this dictatorship but they didnt name hungary it was just a being a blanching eric statement of principle it was so bland that orban joined it was you say its a question of. Accountability its a question of pressuring hungry i want to get to that a little bit later but 1st i want to turn to surveillance now. That is another measure that we have seen emerged amid this Coronavirus Crisis you have called corona virus the new terrorism through that lens where is the balance between surveillance and Civil Liberties right now. Well i think whats interesting is what weve seen over the last few weeks as the debate on this topic has evolved is that theres growing recognition that respect for privacy is actually essential for this surveillance to work and let me explain the leading option right now to be pursued is an app that would be downloaded im sure someone would use basically Bluetooth Technology to see who has been in contact with whom if they are if somebody is infected and so you would download the app you turn on your bluetooth capacity and if you later are found to have been infected your phone will have collected any other bluetooth accessible phone that you were near during the prior to weeks and those people would be notified that they might have been infected and they need to take protective measures so its a good idea in principle but you have to start looking at the fine print you know will the name of the infected person be disclosed theres really no need for that you know will the location of this this meeting be recorded or not again theres no need for that all you need to know is that you when youre someone whos affected you dont need to know the house or store or whatever where that occurred you know is this going to be stored just for 2 weeks when its actionable or is it can be stored forever it is it can be given to the police or not and what we found is that for people to be willing to download these apps all those kind of questions have to be answered in a way that respects what i want of those a lot of those questions havent been answered yet can and you know if we just look at the Public Opinion it seems to be in many countries around the world in support of these surveillance measures you know a look at south korea where 77 percent of South Koreans supported a proposal to require all people subject to a 2 week self isolation to wear electronic wristbands and its not just there also 65 percent of britons support government use of mobile phone data so the question is i mean the public clearly sees the merits of that but lets bring it back to the privacy how high is the risk that people are too open to give up their privacy because theyre afraid theyre afraid of this virus. I think what were seeing is that as people become aware of the options they opt for privacy so yes they want electronic surveillance to facilitate context tracing but for example the debate is completely moved away the nature of just privacy over their own health no no another is the point is that respect for privacy is the best way to protect Peoples Health because thats how you get the cooperation with Public Health initiatives thats required so for example you mentioned south korea south korea used location data which is incredibly intrusive you know if you basically will reveal to the public every place you went in the course of the day youre really really revealing huge parts about your private life and indeed you saw that you know south korea would publicize you so once i was in this location and you know secret liaisons would be revealed and like it was actually quite horrible the debate is now completely moved away from location data the reason were talking about this Bluetooth Technology is because the public so checks for the use of location data. So privacy is one issue but we also have around the world people struggling to get just the basics fleeing their homes perhaps because of violence persecution hunger we have the situation for refugees around the world and the United Nations says the following the Core Principles of refugee protection are being put to a test and it states the following statistics that 167 countries have so far fully or partially closed their borders can to contain the spread of the virus and at least 57 states are making no exception for people seeking asylum in your view how can states manage border restrictions right now in ways that also respect International Human rights and refugee protection standards including through these quarantines and Health Checks that we have seen that have become so popular. I mean what youre pointing out is an absolute problem and there are many governments that are closing their borders to virtually anybody including people seeking asylum including people who have a right to seek refuge because theyre fleeing violence or persecution and that is a problem were seeing around the world there are alternatives that would respect both the right to asylum and the right to Public Health and that would be for example you know testing people if they come across the border simple as that and if they test positive parenting them for a period of time but you know the way trump is doing is just sending everybody off to mexico regardless is not respecting any right to asylum its a blatant violation of International Refugee law. The worlds poorest also poised to be disproportionately affected we have here from the World Food Program saying that the cove in 1000 pandemic will see more than a quarter of a 1000000000 people suffering acute hunger by the end of the year wheres the action but i think that you know this is the problem not simply in poor countries which is what the World Food Programme is highlighting but its also a problem you know closer to home every country has its neglected marginalized disadvantaged communities you know whether its its immigrants or you know people getting in poverty and there is a tendency on the part of governments to just oh you know ignore those people you know if people cant afford the very basics theyre not going to be able to afford a vaccine that is very clear and therefore id like to ask you because there are calls for any Coronavirus Vaccine to be accessible for all we have the u. N. Secretary general antonio ted as saying that the treatments and vaccines should actually belong to the whole world not individual countries or regions when we look at the state of leadership that you highlighted in your last answer there how should that be organized. Well you know ideally this is something that the World Health Organization would supervise i mean trump is in the process of attacking the w. H. O. Was a way of diverting attention from his own mismanagement of the crisis but you know if you look at for example what happens with say its a polio or you know other Infectious Diseases where there is a global effort to. Provide vaccination to everyone were going to need Something Like that for the crown a virus once a back seat is available and its a matter again of self interest because you know we may well paxson a people in parts of the world but if their whole area is where the the coronavirus flourishes its going to remain a threat because even in the west can back and everyone how realistic are multilateral approaches the can i mean if youre if youre just a realist on this because we have a u. S. President who is not a strong supporter of multilateral approaches or human rights efforts for that matter im looking at him you know quitting the u. N. Human Rights Council the United States also a history of the band doing multilateral commitments you mentioned pledges to defund the w. H. O. Also the paris climate cord that im thinking about you know how damaging has it been on the International Stage the lack of u. S. Leadership right now. I mean look at trump is a disaster on every front when it comes to enforcing International Standards or her commitment to International Cooperation so hes a lost cause and you know at least through next november thats what we have. It really shows the importance of leadership from european governments and other governments i mean at the un human Rights Council for example where you know trump abandon it because you criticize just really too much in his view weve seen a whole range of government step forward not only the you know the traditional western supporters of human rights but also a whole range of latin american governments when it comes to say on venezuela even you know muslim majority states that have often kind of issue these kinds of issues have come to the fore to try to protect grow hinge on muslims from persecution in myanmar so i think theres a recognition that Everybody Needs human rights you cant just trust the United States to do it especially under trump and so you know you either abandon the field and go back to pre world war 2 where there were no International Standards of the sort or new new leaders have to step forward and fortunately many new leaders have assume the mantle of enforcing human rights Global Standards whether its fine with health care or other urgent needs weve also seen leaders stepping forward when it comes to filling some of the gaps in this crisis and id like to ask you for your take on that because the country where this virus initiated china has offered leadership in an effort to stamp out the virus how does this change the overall global Power Dynamics if he even democratic countries for example are counting on china for their next delivery of face masks for example. Yeah i mean thats a real double edged thing i mean on the one hand of course you know whatever china can do to provide basic medical needs so much the better but the Chinese Government is not beyond them at all to use those kinds of necessity s as a way of enforcing censorship and you see this for example where there was a lot of Media Attention just recently to african immigrants in china who are facing persecution and chinese diplomats in africa are running around telling governments you either stop criticizing ups or were going to stop giving you ate and thats classic behavior by beijing theyre always trying to use their economic clout to stop criticism of them to enforce their sensors we all around the world and the only way to fight back against that is through the safety of numbers i mean if governments band together and say you know no were not going to stop talking about the detention of 1000000 muslims in shooting you know were not going to stop talking about what happened and why you know were not going to put couldnt even see can i mean the e. U. Couldnt even face up to china i mean we saw recently in the past week it came to light the fact that the e. U. Edited a report on this information in china. In favor of preserving its trade ties no no no i think that was hugely disappointing and weve seen the European Union for example they did bad together twice now once at the un human Rights Council in geneva once of the Un General Assembly in new york. To condemn chinas detention of 1000000 weaker muslims and she drank so its doable but this time around when it came to saying you know why is beijing locking up journalists who go to investigate what happened you know why are they refusing to allow any independent inquiry into the origins of the virus the European Union allow the chinese censors to tell european leaders what they could say i mean thats ridiculous and i hope we can get to you know more courageous that here instead principle on the part of European Union leaders than that lets talk a little more about principle can recently. You faced reports that you accepted a big donation from a billionaire businessman from saudi arabia a country not exactly known for its emphasis on human rights this was reportedly on the condition that you would not report on l g b t rights in the region and your own organization as it turns out had earlier documented coercive labor practices at this particular firm. Tell us youve returned the gift youve apologized what motivated you to accept this donation at all. Yes actually what you do what youre describing there is not quite accurate we did accept a gift from a saudi donor on the condition that we not use hughs gift for helgi he writes in the region but it was always understood that we would continue to use other funds to enforce the rights in the region and indeed did that extensively including me personally so i mean in retrospect we should have even accepted a limitation on his gift because it was you know understood retrospectively as an endorsement of his bigotry and so you know i apologize for that but we never would have agreed to limit our actual work i know duty rights and indeed we never did and weve had a vigorous programme defending the rights of people throughout the middle east throughout that period it never stopped and never would also believe there was a condition in there in the initial memorandum that you signed back in 2012. You know that there was a condition on hughes money he wanted his money to go nabil so its china or comes to you if china comes to you can and says to you im going to give you 5 1000000. 00 and i dont want you to report on the human rights abuses in china are you willing to accept that i mean whats your price. We should be clear we dont take any government money at all this was an individual downer and we dont preclude donations from individuals just because they have to be saudi or anything else and we take no government money but what weve done now is made clear about you know what we do except you have to say you know heres money to promote womens rights or heres money to promote rights in africa we want not as a matter of principle anymore except any gift that is limited this is you cannot report on you know x. Type of victims as far as we know that if they dont have we ever did that it would never do it again so youve changed the policy but ultimately you know this memorandum of understanding was signed back in 2012. And now its 8 years later after the donation came to the publics attention you called it a deeply regrettable decision why did it take you so long to take action. Well it actually only came to light again recently because it described old former employee of his reached out to us and said you know we forgot about it to be honest i mean it just wasnt on anybodys mind once they were caught once we were contacted again we recognize that it is something we shouldnt do and we disclosed it and return the gift and make clear that we would not accept such an exclusionary condition on any as i said this i think is the only time weve ever done that and will never do it again. I want to ask you about challenging situations around the world because israel recently became the 1st democracy to expel a Human Rights Watch employee over his alleged call of a boycott of the country over its settlements in the occupied west bank also in january you were barred from entering hong kong for a News Conference spotlighting beijings deepening assault on International Efforts to uphold human rights how do you have a positive impact in countries that accuse you of bias or wont allow you to work there how do you change your methods. Well 1st im each of those cases totally backfired on the part of the government so the Chinese Government blocked me from holding a press conference in hong kong releasing our annual world report where we spotlighted chinas efforts to undermine the Global Human Rights system and theyre blocking me ended up being exhibit a we got massive Media Attention when they blocked me and 2 days later i held a press conference at the United Nations in new york and got massive attention again so they totally shot themselves in the foot similarly with israel Human Rights Watch has never endorsed a boycott of israel but the reason they expelled our research it was because she had been instrumental in highlighting israels egal settlements in the west bank and particularly the companies that are making those settlements possible by providing Services Like in that base the called on those companies to live up to their human rights responsibility not to be complicit in these war crimes so again they expelled him massive Media Attention more people focused on the problem that had ever been the case before now your question to how do we operate you know weve dealt with governments for many many years where we cant get in its either block us or its too dangerous or what have you and these days there are lots of ways to still get information electronic means obviously through various telephone email social media and the like but we also increasingly are using Remote Sensing so we we have a partnership with a Satellite Company where we can actually get a picture of any place in the world every single day and that allows us to see a lot we do a lot of open Source Research so people post images video and the like on social media we can put it together and help to reconstruct events so how can our lots of if you can follow whats going on even if you cant physically be there but ultimately can and just briefly id like to ask you do you ever despair that the positive changes that youre hoping to affect in the world are as elusive as ever. Look at my view of this is that governments by their nature are tempted to violate human rights you know its just its in their nature to try to do what promotes their political interests even at the expense of peoples rights are driving Human Rights Watchers to graze the cost of that happening it doesnt mean it never happens but it becomes more costly and ultimately this is a cost benefit analysis and if we can raise the cost enough by i shine a spotlight of stigmata what theyre doing by enlisting the support of a sympathetic governments we can tip that balance and make it just not worth it to violate human rights and thats when to make progress and we see that kind of progress every single day through our work kenneth roth thank you for joining us on conflicts on thank you. Day. I go to college. Keep learning or trio should wait a 2nd we want the whole picture perfect so sort of make ideas and shifts deliver us. 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