South Africa has been singled out by the United Nations Human Rights Office as one of a number of countries to have created a ‘toxic lockdown culture’, where the use of force has been freely deployed.
Georgette Gagnon, director of field operations and technical cooperation for the UN body said: ‘We’ve received reports of disproportionate use of force by security officers, particularly in poor and informal settlements,’ Gagnon said, ‘Rubber bullets, tear gas, water guns and whips have been used to enforce social distancing in shopping lines…and outside their homes.’
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet cautioned against countries abusing the pandemic for political repression and to undermine citizens’ rights.
‘Emergency powers should not be a weapon governments can wield to quash dissent, control the population, and even perpetuate their time in power. They should be used to cope effectively with the pandemic – nothing more, nothing less,’ she said.
She also cautioned against curtailing free expression in an attempt to deal with ‘fake news’. ‘It is important to counter misinformation, but shutting down the free exchange of ideas and information not only violates rights, it undermines trust. False information about COVID-19 poses a huge risk to people. But so do bad policy decisions. Undermining rights such as freedom of expression may do incalculable damage to the effort to contain COVID-19 and its pernicious socio-economic side-effects.’
Her office has produced a guide to help governments structure their responses.
Health minister Zweli Mkhize said last night South Africa’s lockdown had helped thwart a ‘rapid explosion’ of infections. The extra two weeks of lockdown had allowed the country to screen many more people.
South Africa had decided to institute a lockdown to delay the spread based on mathematical models which showed the possible scenarios. He rejected suggestions that the models the government had used were ‘flawed’, saying the modelling had been done by a number of different groups.
Positive cases in South Africa have risen to 4 996, with three more deaths, bringing the total to 93. The Western Cape has the highest number of infections and deaths (1 870 and 38), followed by Gauteng (1 377, 8), KwaZulu-Natla (919, 30) and Eastern Cape (616, 10).
News24 reported that Dr John Purchase, CEO of the agricultural organisation, Agbiz, warned that ‘the lockdown regulations were creating endless problems in the processes required to make sure that food gets to poor people’.
There had been a tremendous decline in sales of certain meat products, vegetables and fruit, because the informal sector was still being prevented from distributing food among poor people, he was reported as saying.
In the same report, Izaak Breitenbach, general manager of the South African Poultry Association’s Broiler Organisation, said 30% of the chicken industry involved the sale of live chickens, but these sales had dried up because the informal market was not allowed to distribute at drop-off points.
In other virus-related news
- The number of Americans infected has risen to more than one million, with some 56 700 fatalities;
- Oil giant BP reported a 66% fall in earnings in the first three months of this year;
- The Financial Times reported last night that British Airways was preparing to cut almost 30 per cent of its 42 000 workforce, or 12 000 jobs;
- Spain, one of Europe’s worst-affected countries, recorded 301 new deaths in 24 hours, down from Monday’s figure of 331. The national total now stands at 23 822. The number of confirmed cases rose by 1 308, bringing the country’s total to 210 773.
- Human Rights Watch has called on China to release two activists who were arrested after contributing to a website that archived coronavirus information censored by the government. Chen Mei and Cai Wei reportedly contributed to a website called Terminus 2049, where users could share reports and social media posts removed by government censors. They were detained along with Mr Cai’s girlfriend, Reuters reported. ‘The lack of free flow of information about Covid-19 in China has contributed to a global pandemic,’ said Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang. ‘Governments around the world should press Beijing to release the wrongfully detained activists and citizen journalists immediately.’