Politicising a pandemic is utterly reprehensible - Bachelet

Politicising a pandemic is utterly reprehensible - Bachelet

Posted by PRChannel Team - Malaga City (Remote)

www.GEOPoliticalMatters.com

Some political leadership during the pandemic has been “reprehensible”, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday, while holding out hope of a better 2021 as US President-elect Joe Biden takes office. 

In a wide-ranging press conference to mark Human Rights Day, Ms. Bachelet said it was astounding that some political leaders were continuing to play down of COVID-19 and dismissing simple prevention measures such as wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings. 

‘Knife in the heart’ of trust 

“A few political figures are even still talking casually of ‘herd immunity’, as if the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives is a cost that can be easily borne for the sake of the greater good. Politicizing a pandemic in this way is beyond irresponsible – it is utterly reprehensible”, Ms. Bachelet said. 

Worse still, some leaders had discounted scientific evidence and encouraged conspiracy theories and disinformation to thrive.  

“These actions have plunged a knife into the heart of that most precious commodity, trust. Trust between nations, and trust within nations. Trust in government, trust in scientific facts, trust in vaccines, trust in the future. If we are to bring about a better world in the wake of this calamity, as our ancestors undoubtedly did in the wake of World War Two, we have to rebuild that trust in each other.” 

Brazil, Uganda and Myanmar 

Ms. Bachelet, a former president of Chile, cited Latin America as a region where people had suffered because of leaders denying the existence of COVID-19 and scientific evidence about the disease.  

Pressed by reporters to comment on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Ms. Bachelet said Brazil’s leaders could be much more open to what the science was showing and the pandemic had had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups in Brazil in particular. 

She also criticised countries that had used the pandemic as an excuse to restrict human rights and to delay elections, citing Uganda and Myanmar as “two important examples where COVID-19 restrictions appear to have been instrumentalised by the ruling parties to restrict the right to political participation”. 

US hopes 

The response to the pandemic had also been highly politicised in the United States, she added, but President-elect Joe Biden had made a “series of promising pledges” about giving priority to human rights and multilateralism, including a planned increase in refugee resettlement numbers, an end to the separation of migrant families and to the construction of the border wall on the Mexican border, an overhaul of the asylum system, and a U.S. return to the 2015 Paris climate agreement. 

“So I hope that this new administration will bring us much better - I mean, for human rights, I think it will be much, much better. I'm really hopeful on that”, she said... Full Story

Image Credit: Tobias Rehbein