The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 highlighted structural grievances and inequalities in access to human rights around the world and exacerbated them. People who are already marginalized, including women and refugees, have been particularly hard hit by the devastating effects of the spread of Covid-19. Many governments failed to adequately protect particularly vulnerable groups. Governments and armed groups increasingly used violence and repression in political conflicts and there were increasing restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and freedom of the press. Critical voices that drew attention to grievances were deliberately persecuted and suppressed in many places. The human rights organization Amnesty International comes to these conclusions in its new annual report.
The “Amnesty International Report 2020/21 on the global human rights situation” looks at 149 countries and contains 408 pages in the original English version of a comprehensive analysis of the global human rights situation in 2020, including developments in Germany.
“Millions of people were massively exposed to the pandemic and its consequences last year without governments around the world having adequately fulfilled their human rights protection obligation. Numerous states abused the health crisis to further dissolve the rule of law and restrict rights or approve of the death of people from risk groups or the health sector “, says Markus N. Beeko, Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany.
“The global pandemic has also relentlessly revealed the weaknesses of international cooperation and global systems and institutions. We now need states that jointly and cooperatively tackle global tasks, such as the fair distribution of vaccines, and international institutions need to be strengthened. 19 pandemic is a litmus test of the extent to which the international community is able to deal responsibly and actively with global challenges – be it a pandemic, climate crisis or digitization in accordance with human rights. “
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