UN warns coronavirus could cause a human rights crisis

by Viruben
Apr 24, 2020

António Guterres, UN secretary-general, warned against authoritarians utilising the current virus pandemic to undermine individual human rights, promote racism and restrict free speech.

This statement follows his calls for a global ceasefire and his further warnings that domestic violence will escalate as a result of the pandemic.

Guterres maintained that whilst migration needed to be curbed the scale of restrictions could be overcome by increased testing and targeted quarantine measures. Over 131 countries have shut down their borders with only 30 permitting exemptions for asylum seekers.  There has been a marked rise in hate crimes as the virus is being termed by some as the “foreigner’s disease”.

In his statement Guterres maintained;

“the virus is having a disproportionate impact on certain communities through the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response”.

Read more from the Guardian

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button