AI Report says governments used Covid to spy on, repress, beat and kill people

A global health crisis that could have brought humanity together in a spirit of solidarity was instead exploited by dictators and autocrats across the world to crack down on peaceful opponents, roll back democratic gains and step up surveillance efforts, according to a report issued on Wednesday by Amnesty International.

Governments across the world, but especially in the Middle East and North Africa region dominated by corrupt, repressive autocratic regimes, used the Covid-19 pandemic to silence, harass, arrest and even kill citizens, including the frontline health workers whom they publicly lauded as heroes of the pandemic.

Amnesty’s 408-page “The State of the World’s Human Rights” also identifies trends in inequality and discrimination that it says likely exacerbated the pandemic, which continues to wreak havoc across the planet.

“Pandemic times laid bare the devastating consequences of abuse of power, structurally and historically,” said an introductory note by Agnes Callamard, the new director general of Amnesty. “The Covid-19 pandemic may not define who we are, but it certainly has amplified what we should not be.”

The report details how governments “ruthlessly exploited” the pandemic to deepen attacks on human rights and freedom of expression.