Policy Primer: COVID-19 and Free Speech

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Table of Contents

Introduction
COVID-19 and Free Speech
Free Speech During COVID-19 in the UK
Free Speech in the Context of Emergency
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has become the reason for an ongoing global pandemic that brought to life a series of changes in the socio-economic patterns of people’s lives. According to Singh and Singh (2020), the COVID-19 outbreak has served as a manifestation of long-existing social issues, including inequality, the economic gap between the developed and developing countries, and the legislature’s inability to address the emergency promptly. The pandemic outbreak has become a precedent that revealed the flawed system of public support and health care management. Specific attention, according to Tisdell (2020), should be drawn to the ethical and moral implications triggered by the pandemic, such as enforcing lockdowns and limitations regardless of the group’s ability to survive without public support.

During a pandemic, one of the major issues was chaos and panic concerning the mortality statistics and pandemic forecasts. As a result, many public officials made an unethical and unlawful strategy of hindering access to information by withholding the truth from the public. According to the UK Human Rights Act of 1998 (n.d.), everyone is entitled to the freedom of expression that shall by no means be compromised, withheld, or altered by the authorities and other parties concerned. However, while violating one’s freedom of speech is entirely unethical, such a complicated issue as the global pandemic outbreak makes this ethical dilemma more complex.

COVID-19 and Free Speech

It is critical to analyze how freedom of expression has been tempered since the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the Human Rights Watch organization (2021), the pandemic became a trigger for freedom of speech abuse in many countries across the globe. The report claims that at least 83 governments have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to silence critics and adopt new repressive laws criminalizing speech’ (Human Rights Watch, 2021, para.1). The violation of the freedom of expression is manifested in five major ways:

Violence;
Arbitrary arrests and detentions;
Censorships;
Restricting access to the information;
Banning assemblies and public protests (Human Rights Watch, 2021)

The hysteria revolving around the subject is caused not primarily by the disease itself but by people finding themselves in fear of ignorance and lack of information. Additionally, according to the report, the issue of free speech abuse is especially relevant in low-income countries, which display low democracy levels. According to Hussein et al. (2021), the discrepancy in the levels of democracy and freedom of expression across countries has resulted in misleading evidence on the subject. For example, the primary statistics collected globally demonstrated that low-income countries were less prone to the virus, as the population affected percentages were lower than the economically developed states. The explanation behind this was the assumption that high-income states were more likely to spot a COVID-19 case due to better access to screening and testing for infection (Hussein et al., 2021). Considering the freedom of expression, it can be rightfully assumed that infection rates are the same or higher in low-income countries while the information is withheld.

The issue has been tackled by the UN and the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Acknowledging the fact that the global pandemic inevitably impacts human rights, the UN has closely considered the interpretation of each human rights provision in the given context. According to Dzehtsiarou (2021), as far as Article 10 is concerned, the only limitation applied to the provision is the inability to organize protests and other types of gatherings to manifest the freedom of expression solely due to social isolation and public safety. Besides this alteration, the freedom of expression and free speech, in particular, cannot be violated.

Free Speech During COVID-19 in the UK

The aforementioned report on free speech abuse does not include the UK in the list of countries with documented violations of the freedom of expression. However, the absence of explicit violations does not demonstrate the lack of violations whatsoever. Since the start of the pandemic, implicit free speech abuse was targeted at healthcare workers. According to Horton (2020), the editorial office of The Lancet received numerous complaints from the employees of National Health Services (NHS) in the UK, claiming the hospital administrations’ pressure to contain any information related to the pandemic. One of the nurses even said that she could not imagine she ‘lived in a country where freedom of speech is discouraged’ (Horton, 2020, p. 1178). According to the complaints and reports, health workers were threatened for them not to disclose any information.

However, the threats and disciplinary interventions go beyond safety at work. According to Campbell (2020) and Letsas and Mantouvalou (2020), UK nurses were prohibited from publicly discussing any information related to coronavirus, including the personal protection equipment and hospital bed shortage, and the overall mortality rates. Hence, it may be concluded that currently, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has an explicit impact on the freedom of speech.

Free Speech in the Context of Emergency

Undeniably, freedom of expression is an integral human right that cannot be taken away under any circumstance. However, the fundamental provision of the freedom of expression, Article 10 of the Human Rights Act of 1998 (n.d.), has additional information that concerns certain extremities. The article states that some statements can be withheld or discouraged ‘in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety’ (Human Rights Act of 1998, n.d., para. 2). Driven by this exception, the Council of Europe (2020) issued a directive claiming that media and professional journalists should refrain from publishing unjustified and sensational information to profit from the crisis.

For this reason, it may be understood why nurses and health workers were warned not to disclose any information, as any information in the context of a crisis may be misinterpreted by the media or exaggerated by the public. According to Noorlander (2020), ‘the success of efforts to contain the spread of the virus is largely dependent on access to accurate, reliable, diverse and timely information by all – public authorities, media, medical and other technical staff and, equally important, the population’ (p. 15). However, the genuinely good purpose of saving the population from misinformation should not be achieved through ‘gagging’ the workforce and denying any access to relevant information.

Conclusion

Freedom of speech has always been a fundamental human right. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how this freedom can be limited or even ignored to act in the interests of the authorities. The emergency witnessed today, requires new approaches to the freedom of expression. These practices should employ any threats and legal punishments for executing one’s right to free speech.

Reference List

Campbell, D. (2020) NHS staff ‘gagged’ over coronavirus shortages. Web.

Council of Europe (2020) Respecting democracy, rule of law and human rights in the framework of the COVID-19 sanitary crisis: a toolkit for member states. Web.

Dzehtsiarou, K. (2020) COVID-19 and the European convention on human rights. Strasbourg Observers, 27, pp. 53-58.

Horton, R. (2020) Offline: COVID-19 – bewilderment and candour. The Lancet, 395(10231), p. 1178.

Human Rights Act of 1998 (n.d.) Web.

Human Rights Watch (2021) COVID-19 triggers wave of free speech abuse. Web.

Hussein, M.R., AlSulaiman, T., Habib, M.F., Awad, E.A., Morsi, I. and Herbold, J.R. (2021) The relationship between democracy embracement and COVID-19 reported casualties worldwide.MedRXiv. Web.

Letsas, G., and Mantouvalou, V. (2020) COVID-19 and free speech: ‘gagging’ NHS staff is not proportionate and lawful. Web.

Noorlander, P. Covid and free speech – The impact of COVID-19 and ensuing measures on freedom of expression in Council of Europe member states (2020). Web.

Singh, J. and Singh, J. (2020) COVID-19 and its impact on society. Electronic Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2(1), pp. 168-172.

Tisdell, C.A. (2020) Economic, social and political issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic Analysis and Policy, 68, pp.17-28.

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