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Coronavirus Lockdown Can’t Be Cover for Human Rights Abuses, UN Says

Coronavirus Lockdown Can’t Be Cover for Human Rights Abuses, UN Says

(Bloomberg) --

Emergency measures invoked used to enforce lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic can’t be used to abuse detainees, the United Nations’ top human rights official warned.

Locking up curfew breakers who were simply looking for food in already overcrowded prisons is just one example, Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Monday in a statement.

Reports of police enforcing lockdowns with excessive and at times lethal force are “deeply worrying cases where governments appear to be using Covid-19 as a cover for human rights violations, further restricting fundamental freedoms and civic space, and undermining the rule of law,” said Bachelet, a former president of Chile.

Footage from India, South Africa and the Philippines of authorities beating, kicking and keeping people in dog cages have emerged since countries started to the restrict travel in March. While many of the abuses have been recorded in poorer countries with mixed human-rights records, people are also growing more angry and impatient in the U.S and Europe with less extreme aspects of the lockdown.

Protests have erupted in Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and other states demanding that governors lift strict social distancing policies that have battered the U.S. economy. President Donald Trump has encouraged the gatherings by tweeting that protesters should “liberate” several states that are under lockdown orders.

In the U.K., the National Health Service plans to roll out a phone app that tracks human movement, gleaning data on the spread of the pandemic and alerting those that may have been infected. That has been criticized by civil liberties campaigners Liberty as a privacy power grab.

British authorities are “prioritizing secret surveillance during the pandemic, making it even easier to spy on us all,” Liberty said in the statement.

The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office said it’s working with the NHS to help ensure a high level of transparency and governance.

“People must have trust and confidence in the way personal data is used to respond to the Covid-19 crisis,” the ICO said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.