UN chief António Guterres says pandemic is fast becoming ‘human rights crisis

N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is “a humanitarian crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis.”

The UN chief said in a video message that there is discrimination in the delivery of public services to tackle COVID-19 and there are “structural inequalities that impede access to them.”

Guterres said the pandemic has also seen “disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response.”

He warned that with “rising ethnonationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a push back against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.”.