Geneva/New York, February 22 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced in a blistering speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the coronavirus pandemic has been used by groups and powerful people to incite racism and violence.

He urged the council as it opened its annual meeting to urgently fight the blight of racism, discrimination and xenophobia and “the most pervasive human rights violation of all: gender inequality. These evils are fed by two of the deepest wells of injustice in our world: the legacy of centuries of colonialism; and the persistence, across the millennia, of patriarchy.”

“Stoking the fires of racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, violence against some minority Christian communities, homophobia, xenophobia and misogyny is nothing new,” he said. “It has just become more overt, easier to achieve, and globalized. When we allow the denigration of any one of us, we set the precedent for the demonization of all of us.”

“The danger of these hate-driven movements is growing by the day. Let us call them what they are: White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat.”

He said those people promoting racism and violence has exploited the pandemic to boost their ranks and they are often cheered by people in power. “We need global coordinated action to defeat this grave and growing danger.”

Guterres called on the council to implement a Call to Action for Human Rights that he launched last year which is based on the words and values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Using the pandemic as a pretext, authorities in some countries have deployed heavy-handed security responses and emergency measures to crush dissent, criminalize basic freedoms, silence independent reporting and curtail the activities of non-governmental organizations.”

Turning to the issues of availability of Covid-19 vaccines, Guterres said the pandemic has deepened existing inequalities between rich and poor.

“Extreme poverty is rising for the first time in decades. Young people are struggling, out of school and often with limited access to technology. The latest moral outrage is the failure to ensure equity in vaccination efforts.”

He said 75 per cent of existing Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries while more than 130 countries have not received a single dose despite the fact that vaccine equity is “ultimately about human rights.”

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