How Covid-19 Has Been Battering Human Rights: An Asiapacific Perspective

the most marginalized in society are hardest hit. Asia-pacific governments need to take action.

Attention on the effects of the global coronavirus outbreak have centered on the medical and economic consequences, but Covid-19 has also unleashed a wave of human-rights violations that hit especially hard at the most marginalized members of society.

The Asia-pacific region is rife with such problems, and governments need to take rights-centered and human-centric action, writes

Rajiv Narayan.

THE GLOBAL HEALTH crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic has dramatic consequences for human rights. the pandemic’s impact has already resulted in a massive humanitarian and human rights crisis that will have long-term effects that span economic, social, cultural, civil and political realms. I focus in this article on the human rights impact of the covid-19 pandemic in the Asia-pacific region.

the pandemic has its origins in the Asia-pacific region, having reportedly originated in the chinese city of Wuhan. It had an ominous beginning, from a human rights perspective, as the chinese government’s initial response was to cover up news of the outbreak by censoring reporting, detaining whistleblowers and threatening activists. chinese doctor li Wenliang, who alerted his colleagues about the coronavirus, was censored and then reportedly detained for spreading false rumors. He sadly succumbed to the infection and died, becoming a martyr to the chinese public in the process. the authorities later apologized to the family for their actions.

china’s delayed announcement of the pandemic has been blamed by several countries for not alerting them early enough, which might have curtailed the spread of the disease and reduced the millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths globally. Nearly half the world has now suffered through lockdowns. unfortunately, around the world including in the Asia-pacific region, states reacted to the outbreak in an unco-ordinated way. In their initial responses, several governments were slow to recognize the seriousness of the situation,

which resulted in frontline medical personnel lacking proper protection and delays that cost thousands of lives. like in china, governments in many countries in this region imposed censorship, threatened journalists and in some cases seem to have used the crisis to assert controls that restrict human rights.

A few countries in the region, such as south Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Australia, have taken appropriate steps by implementing preventive measures in a non-discriminatory, universal manner and taking the threat of the pandemic seriously, informing citizens early and involving them in the lockdowns. But they constitute a minority.

un secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed his view by highlighting that “against the background of rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and the pushback against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.” His predecessor,

1 former un secretary General Ban Kimoon, advised that “the constraints many countries have imposed on movement and assembly are understandable and necessary under the current circumstances, but legislators and judiciaries must bear in mind that, if not carefully instituted, these restrictions risk accentuating the marginalization of vulnerable groups such as refugees, migrants and racial minorities. Respect for human rights, solidarity and justice need to be at the heart of our response to covid-19.”

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this article highlights the impact of the covid19 crisis that is currently being treated in many countries as a threat to health and life, but which has enormous and fundamental consequences on the right to equality, food, livelihood, housing, freedom of expression, association, civic space, and essential human security (freedom from fear and hunger) and increases the potential for conflict underlining the concept that human rights are universal, interdependent, inalienable, interrelated and indivisible.

Many countries in the Asia-pacific region initially declared lockdowns and enforced social distancing through states of emergency that give extraordinary powers to the authorities. the enforcement of the lockdowns has been perceived as a law-and-order issue, and the implementation has been left to police and security forces, who have at times employed heavyhanded methods including beatings, mass arrests and even shootings. these tactics have been imposed largely on poor persons working mostly in the informal sector, who have been left without livelihoods and facing imminent starvation. In desperation and in pursuit of survival, millions have embarked on perilous journeys from the cities that employed them to their villages and hamlets. for instance, in India, the lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the evening of March 24 took effect four hours after his announcement. this sudden lockdown left reportedly 120 million persons unemployed, mostly in the informal sector. consequently, tens of millions of people reportedly embarked on return migrations, often on foot, from megacities like New delhi and Mumbai to villages located hundreds of kilometers away with very little money, food and water. In some cases, their journeys ended in death.

In the Philippines, after the main island of luzon went into lockdown on March 16, the police employed harsh measures, reportedly arresting hundreds of people in Manila and other parts of the country. local officials in santa cruz town, in laguna province just south of Manila, reportedly admitted locking up five youths inside a dog cage on March 20. In Bulacan province just north of Manila, police reportedly killed a man after he allegedly avoided a checkpoint.