No vaccine for cruelty
The pandemic has
eroded democracy and respect for human rights
Strongmen
have taken advantage of covid-19 in numerous ways
InternationalOct 17th 2020 edition
The Economist
Oct 17th 2020
ALMATY,
ISTANBUL, KAMPALA, MEXICO CITY AND SÃO PAULO
People
were hungry during lockdown. So Francis
Zaake, a Ugandan member of parliament, bought some rice and sugar and had it
delivered to his neediest constituents. For this charitable act, he was
arrested. Mr Zaake is a member of the opposition, and Uganda’s President Yoweri
Museveni has ordered that only the government may hand out food aid. Anyone
else who does so can be charged with murder, Mr Museveni has threatened, since
they might do it in a disorderly way, attract crowds and thereby spread the
coronavirus.
Mr
Zaake had been careful not to put his constituents at risk. Rather than having
crowds converge on one place to pick up the food parcels, he had them delivered
to people’s doors by motorbike-taxi. Nonetheless, the next day police and
soldiers jumped over his fence while he was showering and broke into his house.
They dragged him into a van and threw him in a cell. He says they beat, kicked
and cut him, crushed his testicles, sprayed a blinding chemical into his eyes,
called him a dog and told him to quit politics. He claims that one sneered: “We
can do whatever we want to you or even kill you...No one will demonstrate for
you because they are under lockdown.” The police say he inflicted the injuries
on himself and is fishing for sympathy with foreign donors.
The
charges against him were eventually dropped, but the message was clear. “The
president doesn’t want the opposition to give out food,” says Mr Zaake, who
walks with crutches and wears sunglasses to protect his eyes. “He knows that
people will like us [if we do].”
The
pandemic has been terrible not only for the human body but also for the body
politic. Freedom House, a think-tank in Washington, counts 80 countries where
the quality of democracy and respect for human rights have deteriorated since
the pandemic began. The list includes both dictatorships that have grown
nastier and democracies where standards have slipped. Only one country, Malawi,
has improved (see map). Covid-19 “has fuelled a crisis for democracy around the
world,” argue Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz of Freedom House. Global freedom
has been declining since just before the financial crisis of 2007-08, by their
reckoning. Covid-19 has accelerated this pre-existing trend in several ways.
The
disease poses a grave and fast-moving threat to every nation. Governments have,
quite reasonably, assumed emergency powers to counter it. But such powers can
be abused. Governments have selectively banned protests on the grounds that
they might spread the virus, silenced critics and scapegoated minorities. They
have used emergency measures to harass dissidents. And they have taken
advantage of a general atmosphere of alarm. With everyone’s attention on
covid-19, autocrats and would-be autocrats in many countries can do all sorts
of bad things, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world will barely
notice, let alone to object.
Measuring
the pandemic’s effect on democracy and human rights is hard. Without covid-19,
would China’s rulers still have inflicted such horrors on Muslim Uyghurs this
year? Would Thailand’s king have grabbed nearly absolute powers? Would Egypt
have executed 15 political prisoners in a single weekend this month? Perhaps.
But these outrages would surely have faced stronger opposition, both at home
and abroad. Granted, the current American administration makes less fuss about
human rights than previous ones have and covid-19 has not changed that. But the
voice from the White House is not the only one that counts.
Last
year was a year of mass protests, which swept six continents, brought down five
governments (Algeria, Bolivia, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan) and forced others to
rethink unpopular policies, as in Chile, France and Hong Kong. This year, by
contrast, governments have banned mass gatherings to enforce social distancing.
For many, this is wonderfully convenient.
For
example, in India, the world’s largest democracy, the biggest campaign of civil
resistance for decades erupted shortly before the pandemic. For 100 days
protesters raged against proposed changes to citizenship laws that would
discriminate against Muslims and potentially render millions of them stateless.
These protests petered out after a curfew was imposed in response to covid-19,
since it was no longer possible to occupy the streets.
Later,
when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government began imposing
strict local lockdowns, it singled out neighbourhoods which had held protests,
many of which were Muslim. Heavy police barricades locked in residents for
weeks.
In
early September the government declared that in the upcoming parliamentary
session there would be no Question Hour for the opposition and no private
members’ bills—long-standing institutions that allow opposition mps
to query the government directly. The excuse: the health risks of covid-19,
along with assertions that in a crisis, legislative time was too precious to
waste on noisy debate. The opposition walked out, allowing Mr Modi to ram
through 25 bills in three days. He then suspended the session eight days early,
having apparently forgotten the earlier excuse that time was short.
At
the outset of the crisis Mr Modi, who has a knack for the theatrics of power,
called on citizens to bang on pots, and later to light sacred lamps, in a show
of solidarity to fight the pandemic. These displays, taken up by his supporters
with glee, were not spontaneous expressions of support for doctors and nurses,
like similar displays in Italy, Spain or Britain. Rather, they were a
demonstration of Mr Modi’s power.
H.L.
Mencken, an American journalist, once wrote that “the whole aim of practical
politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to
safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” He could
have added that when people have real cause for alarm, they are even keener to
be led to safety. Some put their trust in the sober calculations of
evidence-driven experts. Others put their faith in strongmen.
Mr
Modi has racked up colossal approval ratings this year, even as he presides
over a double catastrophe of mass death and economic slump. So has Rodrigo
Duterte in the Philippines, despite the largest reported caseload in South-East
Asia. Mr Duterte’s poll numbers may be coloured by fear; he has had thousands
of people, supposedly criminal suspects, killed without trial, a campaign that
appears to have intensified during the pandemic. But many Filipinos admire his
grim style—extending a “state of calamity” for another year last month,
temporarily banning many nurses from going to work overseas and vowing to try
the first covid-19 vaccine himself to show it is safe.
Popular, you’re gonna be popular
Admiration
for Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s militaristic president, is as high as ever,
despite over 5m covid-19 cases and more than 150,000 deaths. This is partly
because he has handed out emergency aid to 67m hard-up Brazilians, but his
macho posturing also appeals to many voters. He caught covid-19 and recovered,
crediting his background as an athlete. He declared: “We have to face [the
virus] like a man, damn it, not like a little boy.” He blames state governors
for being so scared of the disease that they wreck people’s livelihoods
unnecessarily.
That
strikes a chord with some. When São Paulo’s lockdown was at its tightest, a clothing
shop was illegally letting customers in through a tiny metal shutter door. “The
governors shut things down to hurt the economy and make Bolsonaro look bad,”
grumbled the owner, who shared his president’s dismissive attitude towards
covid-19. “The death numbers are a lie,” he said: “I’m only wearing this mask
out of respect for our clients. I don’t need it.”
Strongmen
find it easier to impress the masses when they control the news. In April
Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog, counted 38 countries using the
coronavirus as an excuse to harass critical media. That number has now more
than doubled, to 91, says Freedom House.
Many
governments have criminalised “fake news” about the pandemic. Often, this means
commentary that displeases the ruling party. Nicaragua’s regime plans to ban
news that “causes alarm, fear or anxiety”. El Salvador has relaunched a state
television outlet, having purged 70 journalists since President Nayib Bukele
came to power last year. “I am watching a very balanced newscast,” grinned Mr
Bukele. “I don’t know what the opposition will see.”
Anyone
in Zimbabwe who publishes or disseminates “false” information about an
official, or that impedes the response to the pandemic, faces up to 20 years in
prison. Two journalists were arrested when they tried to visit in hospital
three opposition activists, including an mp,
who had been abducted, tortured and forced to drink urine by ruling-party
thugs.
All
around the world, ordinary people are being gagged, too. Some 116 citizen
journalists are currently imprisoned, says Reporters Without Borders. In
Uzbekistan people entering quarantine facilities have had to hand over their
phones, supposedly to prevent the devices from spreading the virus but actually
so they cannot take photos of the woeful conditions inside.
Medics,
who see covid-19 fiascos close up, face extra pressure to shut up. China’s
rulers silenced the doctors in Wuhan who first sounded the alarm about the new
virus. Censorship can be lethal. Had China listened to doctors and acted faster
to curb the disease, it would not have spread so fast around the world.
Still,
other regimes have copied China’s example. In September the Turkish Medical Association
accused Turkey’s government of downplaying the outbreak. A ruling-party ally
called for the group to be shut down and its leaders investigated for stoking
“panic”. Yet the doctors were right. The health ministry later admitted that
its daily figures did not include asymptomatic patients. An opposition lawmaker
shared a document suggesting that the true number of cases in a single day in
September was 19 times the official tally.
Egypt’s
government says it is coping admirably with the pandemic. A dozen doctors have
been arrested for suggesting otherwise, as have several journalists. One,
Mohamed Monir, died of covid-19 contracted during detention.
Of
the 24 countries that had national elections scheduled between January and
August, nine were disrupted by the pandemic. Some delays were justified. But as
South Korea showed, a ballot can be held safely if suitable precautions are
taken. Some other governments were in no hurry. Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya
Rajapaksa dissolved the opposition-controlled parliament in March and did not
allow fresh elections until August. In the meantime, he ran the country without
lawmakers to check him.
In
Hong Kong pro-democracy candidates were expected to do well in elections in
September. Citing the risk of covid-19, the territory’s pro-communist leaders
delayed them for a year.
Burundi’s
election in May was probably never going to be clean, but the virus supplied
the perfect excuse to exclude pesky foreign observers. Twelve days before the
election they were told that they would have to quarantine on arrival in the
country for 14 days, thus missing the vote.
In
Russia Vladimir Putin has turned the virus to his advantage. He shifted
responsibility for a strict lockdown to regional governors, but then took
credit for easing it. In the summer he held a constitutional pseudo-referendum
to allow himself to stay in office until 2036. Citing public health, he
extended the vote to a week and allowed people to vote at home, in courtyards,
in playgrounds and on tree stumps. The vote was impossible to observe or
verify. Mr Putin declared a resounding victory. Parliament voted to change the
voting procedure permanently.
In
countries with too few checks and balances, rules to curb the virus can be used
for other ends. On a dark road in Senegal, a policeman recently stopped a taxi
and detained the driver for wearing his anti-covid mask on his chin. After 45
minutes, shaking with fury, the driver returned to his vehicle. The cop had
threatened him with dire punishments unless he handed over some cash, he
explained to his passenger, a reporter for The Economist. He drove off as fast as he could, cursing.
While
petty officials abuse the rules to pad their wages, strongmen typically abuse
them to crush dissent. Police assaulted civilians in 59 countries and detained
them in 66 for reasons linked to the pandemic. Violence was most common in
countries Freedom House classifies as “partly free”, where people are not yet
too scared to protest, but their rulers would like them to be.
In
Zimbabwe, for example, many of the 34 new regulations passed during a national
lockdown are still in place, and have been used as a pretext for myriad abuses.
In September the Zimbabwe Human Rights ngo Forum, an umbrella group, released
a report listing 920 cases of torture, extrajudicial killings, unlawful arrests
and assaults on citizens by the security services in the first 180 days of
lockdown. One man was forced to roll around in raw sewage. Many had dogs set on
them. Dozens of opposition activists have been arrested or beaten, including a
former finance minister. There were too many everyday cases of intimidation and
harassment to count.
Many
strongmen are also chipping away at pre-pandemic checks on their power.
Nicaragua has borrowed an idea from Mr Putin: a law will require ngos
that receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents”. India used
similar rules to shut down the local arm of Amnesty International, which closed
in September after its bank accounts were frozen.
In
Kazakhstan trials are taking place on Zoom, leading some defendants in
politically charged cases to complain that this makes it easy for judges to have
selective hearing. Alnur Ilyashev, a pro-democracy campaigner who was sentenced
to three years of restricted movement for “disseminating false information”,
said he could not always hear his own trial.
Nothing spreads like fear
Panic
about a contagious disease makes people irrational and xenophobic. A study in
2015 by Huggy Rao of Stanford University and Sunasir Dutta of the University of
Minnesota found that people were less likely to favour legalising irregular
immigrants if told about a new strain of flu. Many autocrats, even if they have
not read the academic literature, grasp that blaming out-groups is a good way
to win support.
Mr
Modi’s government tars Muslims as superspreaders. Bulgaria imposed harsher
lockdowns on Romany neighbourhoods than on others. Turkey’s religious
authorities blame gay people. Malaysian officials blame migrant workers, some
of whom have been caned and deported.
Minorities
have had an especially grim time in Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de
facto president, threatened severe penalties for residents who re-enter the
country illegally. People understood this to refer to the Rohingyas, a
persecuted Muslim group, roughly 1m of whom have fled into neighbouring
countries. The rumour that Rohingyas were infecting the nation spread rapidly.
A cartoon circulating online showed a Rohingya man, labelled as an “illegal
interloper”, crossing the border, carrying covid-19.
Meanwhile,
a un rapporteur
warns that the pandemic has “emboldened” Myanmar’s army, which has stepped up
its war on secessionists. The Arakan Army, a rebel group, offered ceasefires in
April, June and September; all were rebuffed. In May and June the army bombed
civilians, razed villages and tortured non-combatants, says Amnesty
International. Some 200,000 have fled to camps for displaced people, according
to a local ngo,
the Rakhine Ethnics Congress. Since covid-19 struck, donations have declined
and supplies of food to the camps have dwindled.
Abusers
and autocrats have not had it all their own way this year. The pandemic has
drained their treasuries. Their finances will still be wobbly even when a
vaccine is found and the public-health excuse for curbs on freedom is no longer
plausible.
And
people are pushing back. Although 158 countries have imposed restrictions on
demonstrations, big protests have erupted in at least 90 since the pandemic
began. Furious crowds in Kyrgyzstan this month forced the government to order a
re-run of a tainted election. Protests in Nigeria prompted the government to
disband a notoriously torture-and-murder-prone police unit on October 11th.
Mass rallies in Belarus have so far failed to reverse a rigged election there,
but have made it clear that the dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, has lost the
consent of his people.
Institutions
are pushing back, too. A court in Lesotho barred the prime minister from using
the virus as an excuse to close parliament. Russia’s opposition parties refuse
to be cowed even by the poisoning of their main leader, Alexei Navalny.
With
luck, when covid-19 eventually recedes, the global atmosphere of fear will
recede with it. People may find the capacity to care a bit more about abuses
that occur far away, or to people unlike themselves. They may even elect
leaders who speak up for universal values. But for the time being, the outlook
is grim.■
Editor’s
note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter.
For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hub
Dig
deeper
How Xinjiang’s gulag tears families apart
Thailand’s
king seeks to bring back absolute monarchy
This
article appeared in the International section of the print edition under
No comments:
Post a Comment