COVID-19 hurting democracies as governments take advantage of crisis — report

MANILA, Philippines — The condition of human rights and democracy has worsened in at least 80 countries around the world, including the Philippines, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report has found.

Based on the analysis of 192 countries and a survey of 398 journalists, civil society workers, activists and other experts, United States-based think tank Freedom House in its report released Friday concluded that global democracy has deteriorated during the coronavirus health crisis.

“The research strongly supports the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the 14 years of consecutive decline in freedom. Not only has democracy weakened in 80 countries, but the problem is particularly acute in struggling democracies and highly repressive states—in other words, settings that already had weak safeguards against abuse of power are suffering the most,” read the report.

The said crisis in democratic governance is expected to continue even after the pandemic recedes since the laws and norms being established in different countries "will be difficult to reverse."

A total of 64% of respondents in the Freedom House survey agreed that the impact of COVID-19 on democracy and human rights in their respective countries of focus will be mostly negative over the next three to five years.

The research institute described five aspects of accountability that have been weakened: checks against abuses of power, protection of vulnerable groups, transparency and anti-corruption, free media and expression and credible elections

A total of 27% of experts surveyed reported government abuse of power as one of the main issues affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

“Officials and security services perpetrated violence against civilians, detained people without justification, and overstepped their legal authority. Governments are also using the pandemic as a justification to grant themselves special powers beyond what is reasonably necessary to protect public health. They have then exploited these emergency powers to interfere in the justice system, impose unprecedented restrictions on political opponents, and undermine crucial legislative functions,” read the report.

Among key government abuses observed during the pandemic, the Philippines — classified as “Partly Free” — experienced media restriction, protest restriction, detention or arrest and police violence.

“The high rates of abuse by authorities in Partly Free countries likely indicate that governments with both a relatively active opposition and weak checks on their own power perceive a greater need and opportunity to resort to violence.”

Surveillance has also been noted to have greatly increased during the pandemic.

A Philippine respondent said that authorities "visited the homes of individuals who may have been exposed to the virus, and arrests are frequently carried out for violations as simple as not wearing a mask while crossing a border."

Nonetheless, activists, journalists and citizens worldwide have been working to overcome these said obstacles and organizing to push back government abuses.

One initiative gave as an example is a Philippine organization that developed a "human rights chatbot" with a respondent explaining that their "legal assistance and information campaign has garnered positive feedback from clients."

Journalism was also said to have received a boost in certain locations due to the demand for information related to the health crisis.

“In the Philippines, where independent media is under assault by the Duterte government, ‘journalists covering the pandemic are pushing back through their enterprising methods of reporting despite the limitation in movement. They are also more indignant whenever restrictions are applied to the press, such as in the case of [the] ABS-CBN shutdown, wherein hundreds of journalists stood in support of the news network.’”