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Policy response from Human Rights NGOs to COVID-19: Human Rights Watch

April 10, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, many human rights organisations have been formulating a policy response. While I cannot be complete or undertake comparisons, I will try and give some examples in the course of these weeks. Here the one by Human Rights Watch, as submitted during the Informal Dialogue with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on 9 April 2020

.…It took some time to realize that when restrictions ease, we may find that the world we return to is not the one we left behind. The human rights consequences, including those that flow from inadequate or unequal access to health care, entrenched inequalities, and the impact of devastated economies, will be felt for years to come. But the kind of world we return to depends on the decisions we take right now.

Human Rights Watch is pleased to present a human rights policy checklist to assist governments in developing effective, rights-respecting responses to the Covid-19 crisis. This checklist sets out more than 40 questions to guide rights responses across a broad range of areas, including access to affordable health care; to water and sanitation; adequate housing, food and education; while ensuring the safety of those in detention; ensuring access to information; maintaining freedom of expression; closing the digital divide; ensuring emergency powers meet international standards, and addressing the needs of groups most at risk, including people living in poverty, ethnic and religious minorities, women, people with disabilities, older people, LGBT people, migrants, refugees, and children.

Because these issues cannot be addressed in the abstract, the checklist illustrates the policy questions by reference to both good practices and areas of concern, recognizing that these can be neither prescriptive nor exhaustive. For example:

  • In Liberia, Kenya, and Indonesia, handwashing stations have been installed in urban areas, while Spain and Argentina have guaranteed that water will not be cut off, and Kosovo has deferred utility payments.
  • In a number of jurisdictions, from Afghanistan to Sudan, Pakistan to Poland, some detainees have been released to decongest jails.
  • France is offering 20,000 nights of free accommodation to victims of violence while in Italy, local authorities have been authorized to requisition hotels to accommodate people fleeing violence in the home.
  • To remove barriers to care, a government official in Pakistan publicly committed to help transgender people.
  • In the Maldives, the government established a Covid-19 clinic for migrant workers that does not require showing work permits.
  • In Australia, millions of dollars are being committed to create a dedicated “coronavirus wellbeing support line.”

At the same time, however:

  • While some jurisdictions have ensured that states of emergency are time-limited and subject to oversight, Hungary has adopted – and Cambodia is close to adopting – a state of emergency law that gives the government unlimited powers for an indefinite duration.
  • While some states have prioritized access to information, government officials in countries including Brazil, Burundi, China, Mexico, Myanmar, the US, and Zimbabwe have exhibited disturbing denialism about Covid-19, depriving their populations accurate information on the pandemic;
  • In countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, and Venezuela, people have been arrested and detained for expressing their opinion about Covid-19 on social media.
  • Israel’s 13-year-long closure of Gaza means that restrictions on the import of medical supplies, and denial of transit permits for many requiring vital medical treatment outside of Gaza, is impeding the crisis response.
  • Covid-19 linked discrimination and hate crimes have targeted Asians in the Middle East, Europe, and the US, and in numerous countries public officials have engaged in ageist rhetoric suggesting the lives of older persons have lesser value

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Procedures and treaty bodies have been at the forefront in addressing numerous areas of human rights concern in the context of the pandemic, and we welcome the leadership of the High Commissioner and Council President in using innovative tools to enable today’s briefing to take place. ….The Human Rights Council also needs to play a more formal role, as soon as it is feasible to do so, through an urgent debate or special session, just as it held a special session on the world food crisis in 2008, the global financial crisis in 2009, and adopted a Presidential statement on the Ebola epidemic in 2014. In the current context, an appropriate outcome would be a process for monitoring and reporting on the human rights dimensions of the Covid-19 pandemic and state responses, including encouragement of good practices and identification of areas of concern. There is a saying that a crisis introduces you to yourself – particularly apt in this time of lockdown. But physical distancing need not come at the expense of international solidarity. Now more than ever, there is a need to reject national factionalism and xenophobia, and work together towards a fairer, more just, and more rights-respecting world.

—-
“Human Rights Dimensions of COVID-19 Response“

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that an outbreak of the viral disease COVID-19 – first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China – had reached the level of a global pandemic. Citing concerns with “the alarming levels of spread and severity,” the WHO called for governments to take urgent and aggressive action to stop the spread of the virus.

International human rights law guarantees everyone the right to the highest attainable standard of health and obligates governments to take steps to prevent threats to public health and to provide medical care to those who need it. Human rights law also recognizes that in the context of serious public health threats and public emergencies threatening the life of the nation, restrictions on some rights can be justified when they have a legal basis, are strictly necessary, based on scientific evidence and neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, subject to review, and proportionate to achieve the objective.

The scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic clearly rises to the level of a public health threat that could justify restrictions on certain rights, such as those that result from the imposition of quarantine or isolation limiting freedom of movement. At the same time, careful attention to human rights such as non-discrimination and human rights principles such as transparency and respect for human dignity can foster an effective response amidst the turmoil and disruption that inevitably results in times of crisis and limit the harms that can come from the imposition of overly broad measures that do not meet the above criteria.

This document provides an overview of human rights concerns posed by the coronavirus outbreak, drawing on examples of government responses to date, and recommends ways governments and other actors can respect human rights in their response.

Contents

COVID-19

Applicable International Standards

Human Rights Concerns

Protect freedom of expression and ensure access to critical information

Ensure quarantines, lockdowns, and travel bans comply with rights norms

Protect people in custody and in institutions

Ensure protection of health workers

Fulfill the right to education—even if schools are temporarily closed

Address disproportionate impacts on women and girls

Root out discrimination and stigma, protect patient confidentiality

Ensure marginalized populations can access health care without discrimination

Protect community and civil society organizations

Promote the rights to water and sanitation

Ensure humanitarian aid continues

Target economic relief to assist low-wage workers

What is Human Rights Watch doing?

See also https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/04/10/policy-response-from-human-rights-ngos-to-covid-19-amnesty-international/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/09/governments-should-deliver-effective-rights-respecting-responses-covid-19

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/human-rights-dimensions-covid-19-response

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High level European meeting on fight against COVID-19 and its impact on human rights

April 10, 2020
Christian Ugge/Regeringskansliet

Christian Ugge/Regeringskansliet

A “digital meeting” was organised by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the fight against COVID-19 and its impact on democracy and human rights.

“The major social, political and legal challenge is our democracies’ ability to respond to the COVID-19 sanitary crisis effectively, without undermining Europe’s founding values of Democracy, Human Rights and Rule of Law. The Council of Europe, through its statutory organs and all its competent bodies and mechanisms will ensure that measures taken have a legal basis and remain proportional to the threat posed by the spread of the virus and limited in time“, said Christos Giakoumopoulos, Council of Europe Director General of Human Rights and Rule of Law, at a digital meeting organised by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

The topic of the meeting was the fight against COVID-19 and its impact on democracy: the participants aimed at contributing to the global conversation about the risk of the COVID-19 response leading to, or being used as a pretext for, undue restrictions on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Christos Giakoumopoulos took part in the meeting with the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde and Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson, as well as with other three representatives of key intergovernmental organisations: Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, EU Special Representative for Human Rights and Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-rule-of-law/-/digital-meeting-with-the-swedish-mfa-on-the-fight-against-covid-19-and-its-impact-on-democracy

 

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Good example of authoritarian abuse of COVID-19 emergency: Hungary

April 7, 2020

Hungary has defied calls by human rights defenders to respect human rights standards in tackling the COVID-19 outbreak.  Monday 30 March 2020, Hungary’s parliament passed a controversial Law on Protection against the Coronavirus, allowing Prime Minister Viktor Orban to rule by decree for an indefinite period [!], and to jail anybody deemed to be publishing ‘fake news’ by up to five years. In the days prior, Civil Rights Defenders condemned the bill on the grounds that it is an attack on the rule of law and democracy, and presents numerous threats to human rights in the country (see https://crd.org/2020/03/24/hungary-state-of-emergency-is-no-excuse-for-undermining-rule-of-law/).

In one of its first moves, the government tabled a bill outlawing legal gender recognition which is a serious and permanent attack on the rights of Trans people. The following day, on Tuesday, it hinted it would use emergency powers to push educational reform by perusing an appalling new curriculum that will rewrite history books by promoting national pride, and making anti-Semitic authors compulsory reading. Coupled with the restrictions on media freedoms, the freedom of expression and the indefinite emergency rule, these measures are a clear overreach of emergency powers and a grave threat to democracy.

20 EU Member States have reacted in a joint-statement that they are “deeply concerned about the risk of violations of the principles of rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights arising from the adoption of certain emergency measures”. However, the statement’s authors did not call out countries by name, thus creating a loophole for Hungary to shamelessly became a signatory itself [SIC and SICK].

https://crd.org/2020/04/07/hungary-ignores-calls-for-respect-of-human-rights/

Posted in Civil Rights Defenders (NGO), EU, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
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Policy response by human rights to COVID-19: the Human Rights Foundation

April 5, 2020

Further in the series of posts on this topic: On 13-14 April 2020, the New York based Human Rights Foundation will host COVIDCon, a virtual Oslo Freedom Forum event focused on how tyranny sparked and is exploiting the novel coronavirus pandemic to crack down on civil liberties. For earlier posts: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/covid-19/

This two-day event, open to global audiences, will feature presentations and panels about the current pandemic and its relationship to state censorship, disinformation, surveillance, and the future of civil liberties. COVIDCon sessions will showcase the difference in the responses of authoritarian regimes and democratic governments to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Confirmed speakers include former Chinese prisoner of conscience Yang Jianli; Iranian journalist and human rights activist Masih Alinejad; Russian democracy advocate Garry Kasparov; recently expelled Wall Street Journal deputy China bureau chief Josh Chin; entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant; Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong; futurist and “After On” author Rob Reid; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum; Ideas Beyond Borders’ Melissa Chen; China-U.S. expert Kyle Bass; and others.

Day 1 of the conference will focus on how tyranny sparked the pandemic. Sessions will include:

  • Censorship in China: The Pandemic Spark
  • How Democracies and Dictatorships are Reacting to the Virus
  • China: Savior or Culprit?
  • Reporting on COVID-19: State Censorship and Surveillance
  • What the Pandemic has Revealed about Chinese Economic Dominance
  • The Increasing Risk of Synthetic Biology

Day 2 of the conference will focus on how tyranny exploits the pandemic. Sessions will include:

  • Iran’s Criminal Negligence: COVID-19’s Gateway to the Middle East
  • Pandemic Power Grab: State Abuse of Emergency Laws
  • Trampling on the Rule of Law and Undermining Public Health
  • Keeping Protest Movements Alive During The Pandemic
  • How the Pandemic Changes the Relationship Between Citizen, Technology, and State

REGISTER

https://mailchi.mp/dcbac9797509/authoritarian-regimes-ill-equipped-for-public-health-emergencies-287692?e=f80cec329e

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New law in Peru may protect the police more than indigenous human rights defenders

April 5, 2020
Matias Perez Ojeda del ArcoPolice Protection Act (Law No. 31012), which was passed in Peru by the new Congress on 27 March, without approval by the Executive, 11 days after declaring a state of emergency in the country due to the spread of COVID-19. This law is constitutionaly questionable and may open the door to impunity according to the Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), the Ombudsman’s Office, the National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH) of Peru, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). [The Act forbids ordering a warrant of arrest or pre-trial detention for Peruvian National Police (PNP) personnel who may injure or kill in a regulatory intervention. Its complementary provision repeals the principle of proportionality in the use of force for a police officer response, which undermines actions under a constitutional framework and is against full respect for human rights, and may create excesses and arbitrariness.]

According to the Ombudsman’s Office, as of January 2020, there were 129 socio-environmental conflicts in Peru. So how will the National Police respond to unforeseen events, even more so in a post-COVID-19 context, where indigenous people’s territories could be more vulnerable to actions to reactivate the country’s economy?  This is more relevant within the framework of the End of Mission Statement of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. At the beginning of this year, it identified that, despite the progress made in this area, human rights defenders, especially from indigenous peoples and local communities, are still unable to carry out their work in a safe environment.

According to the Rapporteur and a report by the Ombudsman’s Office, 960 people have been criminalised for defending and promoting human rights since 2002, of whom 538 were criminalised during social protests. Between 2011 and 2016, 87 human rights defenders lost their lives in Peru, 67% because of law enforcement, according to a CNDDHH report.

…Comprehensive police protection for common interest has lost its essence. Instead, the interests of companies are gaining serious ground in Peru, i.e. 145 agreements of “Extraordinary Police Service”, between the Peruvian Police and extractive companies (mining and hydrocarbon sector), were established between 1995 and 2018, according to a report by the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples of the CNDDH. One example of this is the agreement between the hydrocarbon company PETROPERÚ S.A. and the PNP (2018) for operations in Amazonas and Loreto regions, which affects the ancestral land of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation (GTANW).It is crucial that Peruvian authorities repeal said law to avoid risking the lives of human rights defenders, especially indigenous peoples who are at the forefront of threats, harassment and criminalisation when they protest due to conflicts arising in their territories. Indigenous territories are more vulnerable than ever during the current community contagion phase of COVID-19, as proper health infrastructure and equipment may not reach those areas, nor provide timely and dignified protection for them. There are companies working on indigenous territories during the State of Emergency, including the oil palm company Ocho Sur P. in the Shipibo land of Santa Clara de Uchunya. According to IDL, Ocho Sur is continuing to work without an approved Environmental Impact Assessment. When the State of Emergency is over, most companies will want to recover their losses by any means, regardless the rights of indigenous peoples. This is the moment when the State Protection rules must focus on these issues.

http://www.forestpeoples.org/en/new-law-in-peru-threatens-indigenous-human-rights-defenders

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Policy response from Human Rights NGOs to COVID-19: Witness

April 5, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, many human rights organisations have been formulating a policy response. While I cannot be complete or undertake comparisons, I will try and give some examples in the course of the coming weeks. Here the one by Sam Gregory of

…..The immediate implications of coronavirus – quarantine, enhanced emergency powers, restrictions on sharing information –  make it harder for individuals all around the world to document and share the realities of government repression and private actors’ violations.  In states of emergency, authoritarian governments in particular can operate with further impunity, cracking down on free speech and turning to increasingly repressive measures. The threat of coronavirus and its justifying power provides cover for rights-violating laws and measures that history tells us may long outlive the actual pandemic. And the attention on coronavirus distracts focus from rights issues that are both compounded by the impact of the virus and cannot claim the spotlight now.

At WITNESS we are adapting and responding, led by what we learn and hear from the communities of activism, human rights and civic journalism with which we collaborate closely across the world. We will continue to ensure that our guidance on direct documentation helps people document the truth even under trying circumstances and widespread misinformation. We will draw on our experience curating voices and information from closed situations to make sense in confusion. We will provide secure online training while options for physical meeting are curtailed. We will provide meaningful localized guidance on how to document and verify amid an information pandemic; and we will ensure that long-standing struggles are not neglected now when they need it most.

In this crisis moment, it is critical that we enhance the abilities and defend the rights of people who document and share critical realities from the ground. Across the three core thematic issues we currently work on, the need is critical. For issues such as video as evidence from conflict zones, these wars continue on and reach their apex even as coronavirus takes all the attention away. We need only look to the current situation in Idlib, Yemen or in other states of conflict in the Middle East.

For other issues, like state violence against minorities, many people already live in a state of emergency.

Coronavirus response in Complexo do Alemão favela, Rio de Janeiro (credit: Raull Santiago)

Favela residents in Brazil have lived with vastly elevated levels of police killings of civilians for years, and now face a parallel health emergency. Meanwhile immigrant communities in the US have lived in fear of ICE for years and must now weigh their physical health against their physical safety and family integrity. Many communities – in Kashmir and in Rakhine State, Burma – live without access to the internet on an ongoing basis and must still try and share what is happening. And for those who fight for their land rights and environmental justice, coronavirus is both a threat to vulnerable indigenous and poor communities lacking health care, sanitation and state support as well as a powerful distraction from their battle against structural injustice.

A critical part of WITNESS’ strategy is our work to ensure technology companies actions and government regulation of technology are accountable to the most vulnerable members of our global society – marginalized populations globally, particularly those outside the US and Europe, as well as human rights defenders and civic journalists. As responses to coronavirus kick-in there are critical implications in how both civic technology and commercial technology are now being deployed and will be deployed.

Already, coronavirus has acted as an accelerant – like fuel on the fire – to existing trends in technology. Some of these have potentially profound negative impacts for human rights values, human rights documentation and human rights defenders; others may hold a silver lining.

My colleague Dia Kayyali has already written about the sudden shift to much broader algorithmic content moderation that took place last week as Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube sent home their human moderators. Over the past years, we’ve seen the implications of both a move to algorithmic moderation and a lack of will and resourcing: from hate speech staying on platforms in vulnerable societies, to the removal critical war crimes evidence at scale from YouTube, to a lack of accountability for decisions made under the guise of countering terrorist and violent extremist content. But in civil society we did not anticipate that such a shift to more broad algorithmic control would happen so rapidly in such a short period of time. We must closely monitor and push for this change not to adversely affect societies and critical struggles worldwide in a moment when they are already threatened by isolation and increased government repression. As Dia suggests, now is the moment for these companies to finally make their algorithms and content moderation processes more transparent to critical civil society experts, as well as reset on how they support and treat the human beings who do the dirty work of moderation.

WITNESS’s work on misinformation and disinformation spans a decade of supporting the production of truthful, trustworthy content in war zones, crises and long-standing struggles for rights. Most recently we have focused on the emerging threats from deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media that enable increasingly realistic fakery of what looks like a real person saying or doing something they never did.

We’ve led the first global expert meetings in Brazil, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia on what a rights-respecting, global responses should look like in terms of understanding threats and solutions. Feedback from these sessions has stressed the need for attention to a continuum of audiovisual misinformation including ‘shallowfakes’, the simpler forms of miscontextualized and lightly edited videos that dominate attempts to confuse and deceive. Right now, social media platforms are unleashing a series of responses to misinformation around Coronavirus – from highlighting authoritative health information from country-level and international sources, to curating resources, offering help centers, and taking down a wider range of content that misinforms, deceives or price gouges including even leading politicians, such as President Bolsonaro in Brazil. The question we must ask is what we want to see internet companies continue to do after the crisis: what should they do for a wider range of misinformation and disinformation outside of health – and what do we not want them to do? We’ll be sharing more about this in the coming weeks.

And where can we find a technological silver lining? One area may be the potential to discover and explore new ways to act in solidarity and agency with each other online. A long-standing area of work at WITNESS is how to use ‘co-presence’ and livestreaming to bridge social distances and help people witness snd support one another when physical proximity is not possible.

Our Mobil-Eyes Us project supported favela-based activists to use live video to better engage their audiences to be with them, and provide meaningful support. In parts of the world that benefit from broadband internet access, and the absence of arbitrary shutdowns, and the ability to physically isolate, we are seeing an explosion of experimentation in how to operate better in a world that is both physically distanced, yet still socially proximate. We should learn from this and drive experimentation and action in ensuring that even as our freedom of assembly in physical space is curtailed for legitimate (and illegitimate) reasons, our ability to assemble online in meaningful action is not curtailed but enhanced.

In moments of crisis good and bad actors alike will try and push the agenda that they want. In this moment of acceleration and crisis, WITNESS is committed to ensuring an agenda firmly grounded, and led by a human rights vision and the wants and needs of vulnerable communities and human rights defenders worldwide.

Coronavirus and human rights: Preparing WITNESS’s response

 

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Policy response from Human Rights NGOs to COVID-19: RFK

April 3, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, many human rights organisations have been formulating a policy response. While I cannot be complete or undertake comparisons, I will try and give some examples in the course of the coming weeks. Here the one by Kerry Kennedy of

 

 

 

 

…Nearly 52 years later, it is just as imperative that we take to heart his message to “remember those who live with us,” that our societal response to the coronavirus pandemic be tethered to the same strong sense of equity and social justice of which my father spoke.

In the midst of this global pandemic, that means:

Remembering the most vulnerable—those without a stable or permanent home, those with disabilities, and those without a safety net who have no ability to work from the shelter of their homes or take time off, by ensuring that everyone has access to adequate, affordable healthcare. Those of us who can afford to stock our pantries with reserves must not hoard, instead ensuring that local food depositories and soup kitchens are sufficiently funded and supplied.

Remembering the prisoners—who are unable to practice social distancing to prevent the spread of illness. At Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, we echo the increasing calls to release people being detained pretrial and in immigration detention, starting with the most vulnerable, to ease spread of the virus in crowded, unjust lockups. Jail and immigration detention should never equate to death sentences, and we hope that the current public health crisis will help us see with new eyes how these systems of mass human caging are and have always been so incredibly cruel, dangerous, violent, and unnecessary.

Remembering the truth tellers—as national governments increasingly declare states of emergency to bolster their responses to the pandemic and save lives, we must keep a watchful eye, given the rise of authoritarianism, to ensure that civic space is protected. Governments around the world have made a practice of using such states of emergency to curtail the legitimate activity of human rights defenders. These actions, such as China’s mandate that citizens carry cell phones so they can be constantly tracked, followed by Israel’s announcement that its citizens must do the same, must comply with international law mandating timeliness and sunset clauses, proportionality and nondiscrimination.

Remembering the first responders—our public health officials, the workers stocking the shelves of our grocery stores, and all others who are ensuring that our basic needs are met are putting their lives on the line. The government must do its utmost to make sure that these human rights defenders are armed with necessary resources and protections, including economic security, to stem the outbreak and stay safe.

International human rights law offers us a blueprint for action, reminding us that all citizens of the world have inalienable rights—no matter their race, gender, background, income level, or sexual orientation.

….We are all facing this unprecedented crisis together.see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/03/27/covid-19-spread-leads-to-reactions-and-messages-of-solidarity/

https://rfkhumanrights.org/news/coronavirus-statement

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Policy response from Human Rights NGOs to COVID-19: ISHR

April 3, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, many human rights organisations have been formulating a policy response. While I cannot be complete or undertake comparisons, I will try and give some examples in the course of the coming weeks. If there are special ones you would like to draw my attention to, please do not hesitate. Here is one from Phil Lynch, the Director of the International Service for Human Rights:

 

Staying true to our values is never more important than during times of hardship or crisis. At ISHR, there are five values driving our response to the COVID-19 global pandemic: solidarity, dynamism, alertness, wellbeing and hope.

Solidarity

…Solidarity is an essential value at this time. At ISHR this means showing solidarity with colleagues – with a number of staff volunteering to help and alleviate the workload of others who may have reduced capacity – as well as solidarity with human rights defenders, with our programme staff reaching out to national and regional-level partners to discuss their wellbeing, situation, priorities and needs. Please do reach out to us if there are any ways we can provide support to you at this vital time. In addition to showing solidarity, we’ve also greatly appreciated receiving solidarity. I’ve personally benefited from the wisdom, insights and advice of other NGO directors in terms of their response to this crisis, and discovered the musical talents of neighbours as we’ve gathered on our balconies every evening to clap and sing our gratitude to the doctors, health care professionals and sanitation workers on the frontlines of this crisis.

Dynamism

This crisis has highlighted the importance of dynamism, adaptability and planning for uncertainty, as well as the limitations of log frames, tightly earmarked funds, and donor restrictions on building organisational reserves.

At ISHR we are determined to use this crisis as an opportunity to innovate and to test and expand new ways of working. Last year, thanks to the support of several donors – including the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands – we launched the ISHR Academy – an interactive, online platform to build the capacity and skills of human rights defenders to leverage the UN human rights system to contribute to national level change. With a significantly increased demand for online training and strategic advocacy support, we’re currently working on new modules for the Academy, as well as translation into Spanish. With further financial support we’d love to develop even more modules and in additional languages. This would increase access to resources, strategic advice and tailored advocacy support for human rights defenders from all regions. The suspension, postponement and cancellation of a significant number of meetings and sessions of international and regional human rights mechanisms has starkly exposed the need for such bodies to develop means by which human rights defenders can more effectively engage and participate remotely. This is relevant not only now in response to the COVID-19 crisis, but in the longer term in response to the climate crisis and the imperative of reducing travel-related emissions. Effective means of virtual participation are also critical for defenders who lack the resources to travel to Geneva or New York, as well as those for whom travel may be restricted or banned by repressive governments. ISHR programme staff are actively engaged on these issues – leading and participating in strategic discussions and the formulation of practical recommendations as to how to use this crisis as an opportunity to make human rights mechanisms more accessible, effective and protective for defenders worldwide.

Alertness

ISHR is not the only body looking at ways to use this crisis as an opportunity. Unfortunately, some governments will use this emergency as a subterfuge to more permanently increase surveillance, as well as restrict fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, protest and movement. Alertness is therefore a critical value at this time. We must be vigilant to ensure that any laws or regulations enacted in response to COVID-19 are for the legitimate purpose of protecting public health, and that any restrictions they impose are reasonable, proportionate and strictly time bound….With persons in detention at particular risk, ISHR staff are also using the opportunity to push for the release of arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, including several with underlying health conditions in States including China, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Wellbeing

..All ISHR staff have worked remotely since at least 13 March, with exceptions only for staff that need to attend the Geneva office for short periods for essential functions. Staff are working from various locations and states of confinement in Switzerland, France, New York, London, Brussels, Abidjan and Jakarta. We have agreed a complete restriction on work-related travel, with both this restriction and the work from home arrangements remaining in place for the indefinite future.

….Financial security is imperative at this time and I am so impressed and thankful for the initiative of major donors such as the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Open Society Foundations to proactively reaffirm their funding commitment, to indicate that they will be highly flexible in the use of funds and reporting requirements, and to invite us to reach out if we need further support. Best practice at this time of unprecedented uncertainty is to enable the conversion of project or earmarked funds to core or unrestricted funds. I am working with the Board to evaluate and prepare for a range of scenarios, ensuring the long term sustainability of ISHR. Your contributions as private donors will be vital in this regard – every donation helps!

Hope

The final value motivating ISHR at this time is that of hope, which we draw from many places.

We take hope from the doctors, health care professionals and sanitation workers who bravely and tirelessly provide vital care and support.

….

I wish you, your families, your loved ones and your colleagues are and remain healthy, safe and well.

—-

See also my earlier: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/03/27/covid-19-spread-leads-to-reactions-and-messages-of-solidarity/

http://www.ishr.ch/news/covid-19-focusing-wellbeing-solidarity-dynamism-alertness-and-hope

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Refugees and migrants in camp conditions at high risk of COVID-19

March 30, 2020
Women in the Ponte Galeria immigration detention center near Rome, Italy May 6, 2017.
Women in the Ponte Galeria immigration detention center near Rome, Italy May 6, 2017. © 2020 Reuters/Steve Scherer

On 27 March 2020 HRW Europe said that people in immigration detention in European countries pending deportation should be given alternatives to detention amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “While entire societies learn to live under lockdown, we shouldn’t forget about people locked up because they have the wrong papers,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities across Europe should take measures to protect the health and rights of detainees and staff in immigration detention centers, including by releasing people and finding alternatives to detention.”  ….As travel bans increasingly prevent forced returns and courts limit their activities, the reason that thousands of people across the EU and other European states may be held in detention – imminent deportation – is no longer justified. The EU Returns Directive allows detention pending deportation for up to 18 months, but stipulates that if “a reasonable prospect of removal no longer exists…detention ceases to be justified and the person concerned shall be released immediately.”

Amnesty International issues a call for action re Greece: While the world is facing the crisis of COVID-19 pandemic, the risks for refugees in the Greek islands are multiplying by the hour. Thousands of older people, people with chronic diseases, children, pregnant women, new mothers and people with disabilities are trapped there in dangerously overcrowded conditions. Now, they also face the threat of the COVID 19 pandemic, the consequences of which would be catastrophic for those confined in camps. In addition to protecting the rest of the population, the Greek Government must take immediate measures to protect refugees from the pandemic and move them to safety.

…In a statement of principles on the treatment of prisoners and detainees amid the COVID-19 crisis, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, a body of the CoE, asked authorities to use alternatives to detention “and refrain, to the maximum extent possible, from detaining migrants.” On March 25, its sister body, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture urged all states to reduce populations in detention centers and refugee camps “to the lowest possible level.” The same day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said governments should “work quickly to reduce the number of people in detention” to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 “rampaging through such…extremely vulnerable populations.” On March 26, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović echoed the call to release detainees from immigration detention to the extent possible.

Moroever, we should not forget that more than three quarters of refugees live in developing countries in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. As the Reuters and Al-Jazeeraa stories (link below) makes clear, a COVID-19 outbreak would put extraordinary strain on fragile local health-care services and likely result in avoidable suffering and death. Preventing or delaying outbreaks, particularly among the most vulnerable, is the most important action we can take right now.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/27/europe-curb-immigration-detention-amid-pandemic

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-refugees/just-one-case-fears-coronavirus-may-spread-like-wildfire-in-worlds-refugee-camps-idUSKBN21F0OW

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/front-worry-covid-19-spreading-african-refugee-camps-200329054029304.html

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Covid-19 spread leads to reactions and messages of solidarity

March 27, 2020

From the myriad of messages on the spread and impact of the Covid-19 virus, here a few excerpts:

On 27 March 2020, Rosa Kornfeld-Matte, UN Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons said that society has a duty to exercise solidarity and better protect older persons who are bearing the lion’s share of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Reports of abandoned older persons in care homes or of dead corpses found in nursing homes are alarming. This is unacceptable,” said  “We all have the obligation to exercise solidarity and protect older persons from such harm.” Older persons .. are further threatened by COVID-19 due to their care support needs or by living in high-risk environments such as institutions, the expert said. [https://reliefweb.int/report/world/unacceptable-un-expert-urges-better-protection-older-persons-facing-highest-risk-covid]

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Adrien-Claude Zoller, President of the small NGO ‘Geneva for Human Rights – Global Training’ issued a statement of solidiarity ith the marginalised who will suffer most:….As a human rights organisation, Geneva for Human Rights is deeply worried about the situation of the most vulnerable, of the unemployed and homeless, of those in extreme poverty, of people with disabilities, of women already assuming so many tasks, of the elderly, of those arbitrarily detained in overcrowded prisons, of minorities, migrants, internally displaced, refugees, and indigenous peoples. It is a matter of human dignity. Human rights are at stake.
Many Governments first denied, then de-dramatized the spread of the virus, before taking measures to contain it and limit the damage for their economy. Too often in these measures, the social impact of both the health and the economic crises is neglected. We all fully support efforts to eradicate the virus. At the same time, we should not forget the commitment of the international community to eradicate extreme poverty (‘Sustainable Development Goal’, Nr.1). We have to protect the most vulnerable.
….Countrywide lockdowns imply a limitation of human rights. Indeed, complying with these emergency rules, including home confinement, is a moral imperative, a matter of solidarity to slow down the spread of the virus in our communities, and to support those on the frontline, in particular health- and social workers. However, we should recall that measures derogating from human rights obligations in ‘public emergency which threatens the life of the nation’ have to be limited ‘to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation’. They have to be proportionate, limited in time, and in no way discriminatory (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 4, United Nations, 16 December 1966). In many countries, such derogations led to special powers attributed to the Executive branch. Still, the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination have to apply. Parliamentary control and the Rule of Law remain a must, as well as transparency and access to all the information. We are dismayed that in several ‘denying’ countries (e.g. China at the beginning of the pandemic, Brazil, Egypt, Turkey) journalists, physicians, health workers and human rights defenders, are targeted for having exposed the gravity of the situation and the fate of marginalized people…………

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The New Humanitarian looks at the expected impact on aid:  https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/03/26/coronavirus-international-aid

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The G20 seems to be aware as shown by a portion of their recent statement: “Enhancing Global CooperationWe will work swiftly and decisively with the front-line international organizations, notably the WHO, IMF, WBG, and multilateral and regional development banks to deploy a robust, coherent, coordinated, and rapid financial package and to address any gaps in their toolkit. We stand ready to strengthen the global financial safety nets. We call upon all these organizations to further step up coordination of their actions, including with the private sector, to support emerging and developing countries facing the health, economic, and social shocksof COVID-19.We are gravely concerned withthe serious risks posed to all countries, particularly developing and least developed countries, and notably in Africaand small island states, where health systems and economies may be less able to cope with thechallenge, as well as the particular risk faced by refugees and displaced persons. We consider that consolidating Africa’s health defense is a key for the resilience of global health. We will strengthen capacity building and technical assistance, especially to at-risk communities. We stand ready to mobilize development and humanitarian financing” [https://g20.org/en/media/Documents/G20_Extraordinary%20G20%20Leaders%e2%80%99%20Summit_Statement_EN%20(3).pdf]

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