The Covid-19 pandemic is hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
The pandemic obliterates livelihoods and exacerbates every inequality and injustice. Authoritarian and populist regimes use it as a pretext to silence dissent, arrest human rights defenders, and curtail our common freedoms. Their security forces use indiscriminate violence and torture under the pretext of enforcing lockdowns. The pandemic intensifies the effects of overcrowding in detention to a breaking point, with a real risk of spillover beyond prison walls. All this is tearing the social fabric in ways we are only starting to comprehend.
Together with our SOS-Torture Network, we are addressing the new threats to the most vulnerable members of our societies.