6.9.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 342/199 Thursday 17 February 2022
Specific human rights challenges COVID-19
34.
Underlines that COVID-19 has significantly strengthened the recent trends of illiberal democracies and autocratic regimes weakening democracy; deplores the abuse of the epidemiological crisis by these regimes to further constrain the freedoms of expression, assembly and religion and belief by restricting the functioning of democratic institutions and repressing dissent, including limiting media freedom both online and offline and targeting critics and whistleblowers with defamation campaigns; equally deplores the fact that these regimes have also pursued discrimination against marginalised populations, notably indigenous populations and other minorities, the mass use of surveillance tools, disinformation campaigns, restrictions on access to information, in particular from pluralistic and independent media through blanket internet shutdowns, bandwidth throttling and content blocking, the implementation of emergency measures without clear criteria for their revocation, restrictions on the democratic exercise of elections, and the use of selective access to healthcare as a means of discriminating against certain segments of the population;
35.
Recognises the important role played by human rights defenders in responding to COVID-19 by taking on a multitude of new roles in addition to their everyday human rights work, notwithstanding the significant and disproportionate risks they face; notes with concern that governments around the world have used the pandemic as an opportunity to specifically target human rights defenders by refusing to release them from prison, prolonging their incommunicado detention, restricting prison visits, and sentencing them on trumped-up charges in closed-door hearings;
36.
Stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on economic and social rights in most countries worldwide, while the health and subsequent economic crisis has triggered the growth of inequality within and between countries; denounces the continued attempts by authorities to withhold vital information from international investigators about the origins and spread of COVID-19; highlights that the highly negative consequences of COVID-19 have disproportionately affected groups in vulnerable situations, including women, LGBTIQ persons, impoverished people, children, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, minorities of religion, belief and others, informal workers and persons in prison or detention, among others; stresses that groups in vulnerable situations are also more affected by the negative economic and social consequences of the pandemic, as well as the restrictions on access to healthcare and education; notes with concern the increase in intolerance, discrimination and hate speech against certain groups in vulnerable situations, in particular minority groups, as well as restrictions on fundamental freedoms;
37.
Stresses that the EU should increase its support to tackle the negative consequences of COVID-19, particularly for groups in vulnerable situations; calls, to this end, for the EU to urgently strengthen its efforts to eliminate the alarming imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines, thereby fulfilling its previous commitment to support the COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good through, among other things, technological transfer and the ramping up of local production, including through the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), in order to ensure that the vaccines are available, accessible and affordable for the maximum number of people; stresses the importance of supporting the reinforcement of education and healthcare systems to make them resilient to future threats; urges the EU and its Member States to increase financing for the provision of basic public health services; underlines, in this context, the importance of social protection; calls for greater support for innovative technologies to that end and welcomes the response of Team Europe; acknowledges the right to physical and mental health, which in many countries is still subject to stigma and discrimination, and underlines how the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed enormous neglect in the provision of mental health care;
Human rights defenders
38.
Praises the important work undertaken by all human rights defenders around the world, sometimes at the most severe of costs, and takes this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of all human rights defenders to the human rights movement; reiterates that human rights defenders are often the only interlocutors able to conduct on-site monitoring and human rights protection in territories such as those under occupation or annexation, especially in certain frozen conflict areas, where there are limited engagement capacities for both the international community and the EU;
39.
Is seriously concerned at the precarious situation of human rights defenders and deplores the fact that they are the victims of increasing violence, including targeted killings; points out that some countries have a particularly worrying track record when it comes to the persecution, harassment, intimidation, kidnapping and extrajudicial killing of human rights defenders; underlines the particularly severe situation for female, labour, environmental and indigenous human rights defenders, which has been further aggravated by COVID-19; deplores the increased use of techniques such as harassment,