Police checks on the observance of quarantine measures
Azərbaycan Respublikası Daxili Nazirliyi Işlər / Twitter Turkish Police checks on the observance of quarantine measures
Türk Polis Teşkilatı / / Twitter
human rights activists around the world pay attention to the fact that some governments are trying to use combat coronavirus as a pretext to increase pressure on the opposition and uncontrolled media. Officials also tend to give extremely broad powers.
Examples of this policy, particularly in the post-Soviet space, leads to “BBC Russian service”. So, on March 19 the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated that “the fifth column” and “national traitors” can use the pandemic coronavirus to commit provocations. He accused the opposition of trying to “sow confusion and panic”. After that, the country has carried out arrests of opposition leaders.
In Armenia government ordered the media to publish information only from official sources. In the end, the Public television of Armenia was forced to remove an article which quoted the CNN report that Iran’s average every 10 minutes someone dies from itarenavirus.
the actions of the authorities of Armenia criticized the OSCE and the international organization “reporters without borders”. Shortly after this the Yerevan partially backed down. Authorities allowed to publish information on the topic of coronavirus, obtained from official international sources.
However, all restrictions applied only to publications related to the coronavirus. Materials on other topics are not censored.
In Belarus 152 cases of coronavirus, 1 died. Restrictions are not imposed and the authorities clearly underestimate the threat. But the proliferation of information on the coronavirus is in full swing.
a Week ago the country’s President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the KGB to deal with the sources of information that “sow panic” about the outbreak of coronavirus. “Already enough to look at it. Should be a good go to these sites, channels. You need to understand the villains who throw these fakes. Why are people bullied?” Lukashenka said.
the President also said that he sees no reason for postponing the elections of the heads of Belarus, scheduled for August 2020. The opposition has canceled a meeting with voters in the regions due to the threat of the spread of coronavirus.
In Turkey coronavirus has infected more than 10 thousand people, 168 died, in 18 provinces has been quarantined. More than 300 people were arrested for publishing in social networks related to the coronavirus.
was recently arrested driver of the truck that issued your account a video criticizing the actions of the authorities to contain the epidemic.
In Hungarian coronavirus were detected in 492 people, of whom 15 died. The country has a regime of emergency. The Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, referring to special circumstances in connection with pandasAMIA, on Monday held a law through Parliament, giving his government extraordinary powers for an indefinite period, during which the government will actually govern without Parliament, only informing the speaker and faction leaders about the measures taken.
the law, among other things, provides for the punishment for the spread of what the government considers misinformation about the pandemic – from one year to five years in prison. The opposition believes this is another attempt by Orban to freedom of the press.
In China more than 81 thousand people fell ill COVID-19. 3 305 sick died, the quarantine regime was introduced in several provinces.The study of human rights organization Citizen Lab showed that China’s censor even messages in social networks. The authorities tried to prevent the dissemination of information about the coronavirus even in the medical community since its introduction. Thus, they only exacerbated the situation.
One of those who first raised the alarm, was the doctor If Vanillan, which informed the colleagues about the new virus. Soon after that, Lee called the police and demanded an end to panic and make a public apology. A little later the doctor himself contracted the coronavirus died 7 Feb.
According to the research organization Citizen Lab, working on issues of Internet censorship under pressure from the government censored information and the most popular instant messenger of China – WeChat. The researchers found that is now banned over 500 phrases associated with the theme of the coronavirus.
Among them – “Wuhan Communist party of China”, “crisis Beijing”, “Western medicine is a coronavirus”, as well as the critics of the government to contain the epidemic. Some accounts were completely blocked, and their authors were put under surveillance.
the authorities of the Chinese province HangOU require citizens to use a special app Ant on smartphones for access to public places. It assigns each user to Hangzhou QR code green, yellow or red. It must be shown at the entrance to office buildings, residential buildings, shopping centres and public transport.
Code green means that the user can move freely in the province. The owners of the yellow code needs to spend a week at home in isolation. But those who have flashed code red, send to a mandatory two-week quarantine.
By the end of February codes were almost 90% of the province’s population (50 million people). More than one million of them received a yellow or red code. On what principle are assigned to the codes is unclear.
According to the Ant, the program automatically sinhroniziruete and analyzes large amounts of data, including on the movement of users, and then draws conclusions about the state of their health.
the Developer Ant is a system Alipay, which is China’s 900 million users. According to the New York Times, with each scan code app records the location and reports it to the police.
According to journalists, in the future, a new application can become a tool of surveillance of the state over citizens. In China’s state media write that the system will help the work of checkpoints at train stations and highways.
“Digital concentration camp”, in the words of the oppositionist Leonid Volkov, and prepares the city for Muscovites. Officials in a hurry to implement a massive system of spying on residents who are required to comply with the quarantine. On every exit from the house, including taking out the garbage, citizens will have to obtain special permission, in the form of a QR code, as in China. Special privilege bespreadtively to move will receive only security forces and other officials.
