UN rights chief hits ‘politicization’ of COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines — The United Nations human rights chief expressed serious concern over the “increasing politicization” of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to blame its effects on political opponents and smear campaigns against journalists.

Michelle Bachelet, UN high commissioner for human rights, said attacks on journalists to silence them also constitute an attack on all civil society.

She urged all countries to do more to protect journalists, especially during the COVID-19 crisis, as their work helps save lives.

Speaking at an event in support of press freedom in Geneva, the high commissioner noted that around 1,000 journalists have been killed in the last decade – and that nine in 10 cases “are unresolved.”

Her comments, on the eve of the trial of alleged accomplices of extremists who killed 12 people at the French satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo in 2015, were echoed by political cartoonist Patrick Chappatte.

Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the work of the media is paramount, Bachelet continued, as their reporting is “an essential tool for officials to quickly learn where measures are being inadequately applied,” and what concerns are most important to people.

Without naming them, she said that several countries had seen “increasing politicization of the pandemic and efforts to blame its effects on political opponents, have led to threats, arrests and smear campaigns against journalists who maintain fact-based information about the spread of COVID-19 and the adequacy of measures to prevent it.”

“When journalists are targeted in the context of protests and criticism, these attacks are intended to silence all of civil society and this is of deep concern,” Bachelet said.

“Journalism enriches our understanding of every kind of political, economic and social issue; delivers crucial – and, in the context of this pandemic – life-saving information; and helps keep governance at every level, transparent and accountable,” she added.

In June, the UN Human Rights Office said human rights violations documented in the Philippines have been exacerbated by harmful rhetoric emanating from the highest levels of  government, which the report described as “pervasive and deeply damaging.”