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Stances, Repression, and Disgust for Facts: The world’s strongmen regimes have treated the Covid pandemic the same way they treat everything else, analysts say.
But infrequent well-being of the population, coupled with utter incompetence, has undermined citizens’ acceptance as true of those leaders, they say.
“They all have leadership behavior, macho leadership,” said Uma Kambhampati, a progression economist at the British University of Reading.
“This type of pandemic will have to aggravate them. “
After a public presence at the beginning of the crisis, leaders such as Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister and Russian President Vladimir Putin are now avoiding Covid’s spotlight, he told the AFP.
– ‘I can’t blame anymore’ –
“At first they can just blame other people, but now, six months later, they can’t blame anyone else,” he said.
“It is a comfortable position for them. “
A typical reaction has been to crack down on complaints from fitness and other key personnel, Amnesty International said, citing China, Russia, Malaysia and Pakistan as examples.
In a July report entitled “Exposed, silenced, attacked,” Amnesty highlighted cases of governments imposing restrictions to prevent such personnel from expressing their views on the policy.
His considerations relate to unsafe running conditions, lack of good enough non-public protective equipment, inadequate education and insufficient physical fitness tests for workers.
– “Spread rumors” –
Amnesty cites the case in China of ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who warned his colleagues that they opposed Covid and temporarily sanctioned him for “spreading rumors. “
In Egypt, the government used accusations of “spreading fake news” and “terrorism” to arrest at least doctors and pharmacists between March and June for speaking, according to Amnesty.
The same fees were opposed by Mohamed Mounir, a 65-year-old journalist running for Al Jazeera, who died of Covid in July.
In Pakistan, police disbanded a protest through doctors over their operation and lack of equipment, ploying crowds with arrears and arresting dozens, Amnesty said.
“Authoritarian countries have a very specific trend that has gone through the pandemic,” said Benno Zogg, principal investigator at the Center for Security Studies in Switzerland.
“They need to give the symbol of being strong, it is true for Russia and China, to show that authoritarian regimes are better able to handle such a crisis than democratic regimes,” he told the AFP.
“They took several steps to fundamentally society and made sure there was no choice data or opinions of choice,” he said.
– Supervision –
The human rights violations have basically consisted of restricting freedom of expression and assembly, experts say.
A notable exception is Belarus, where chaotic pandemic management, aggravated by accusations of fraud in a presidential election, provoked mass protests.
The governments of the Philippines, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and others are to blame for silencing voices about the pandemic, they say.
Meanwhile, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been criticized for the brutal control of containment and detection rules by the police.
Using the desire to curb the spread of Covid as a pretext, many regimes also have increased spending on surveillance equipment, manufactured in China, such as GPS tracking, video surveillance, facial popularity and identity verification software.
“Once surveillance is in place, it can be used in the next crisis, or even as a permanent measure,” Zogg said.
Meanwhile, some strong men will face an increasingly smaller audience due to their shortcomings, or even ridicule them for using discredited Covid remedies such as hydroxychloroquine or extravagant remedies such as washing their hands with alcohol. essence or herbal concocns.
“I don’t think any of the strong leaders have fared better,” Kambhampati said.
fka / jh / sjw / kjm