"Widespread reliance on punitive approaches to enforcing public health" harms marginalized groups, says Amnesty International. A new report from the human rights group Amnesty International suggests quarantine rules and other COVID-19 restrictions were especially damaging for groups already more likely to face discrimination, police harassment, and unjust criminalization. Amnesty International calls on governments to reject using criminal sanctions to implement public health goals and "refrain from implementing repressive policies" in the name of protecting pubic health.
"Though Covid-19 measures may have varied from country to country, governments' approaches to tackling the pandemic have had a common failing," said Rajat Khosla, Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, and policy, in a statement. "An overemphasis on using punitive sanctions against people for non-compliance with regulations, rather than supporting them to better comply, had a grossly disproportionate effect on those who already faced systematic discrimination."
