Reporters Without Borders denounced that the persecution of journalists in China had prevented the world from preparing in time for the COVID-19 pandemic

Reporters Without Borders denounced that Chinese regime’s persecution of journalists may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19, which has already claimed more than three million lives and hundreds of millions of infections worldwide.

According to the organization, preventing whistleblowers from warning Beijing about what was happening during the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan prevented the world from better preparing for the unexpected virus.

In the index provided this Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders, China fourth among 10 with worst press freedom in the world. In the first three positions are the totalitarians Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan, and they follow Djibouti, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Laos and Cuba.

Regarding Xi Jinping’s regime, RSF said that “continues to push online censorship, surveillance and propaganda to unprecedented levels“.

“We can sit in the UK and think everything is fine here, but the reality is what is happening halfway around the world can affect us,” said Rebecca Vincent, the organization’s director of international campaigns. “We have said and will insist that if the press had been freer in China, then it is possible that a global pandemic would have been avoided.“.

When the first cases of coronavirus were known, at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, the Chinese regime applied all its brutal force of censorship to shut down any information about what was going on. Even the Chinese authorities persecuted Doctor Li Wenliang, who was the first to report what was happening and who later died of COVID-19.

Vincent said China is using its global influence to try to cover up the abuses it commits against its people and try to sell another image of itself to the world. “China has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world, and it leaks and starts thanks to international information systems. The regime does its best to try to influence the way we get and perceive information“.

Many regimes have taken advantage of the emergencies linked to the coronavirus to further restrict freedom of the press, which is in a “difficult situation” in 73 of the 180 countries analyzed and “very serious” in 59 others, or 73% of the total. . “

At a time when disinformation, rumors and invitations to hatred are spreading through social networks, where journalism is the best vaccine against these evils, in 73% of countries this vaccine is blocked ”, assures Efe the Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Christophe Deloire. The emergence of the health crisis has shaped the trends already mentioned in the last report, by promoting violations of press freedom. Deloire pointed out that in more than half of the UN states, these types of violations have been recorded.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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