The truth is also a victim of Covid-19. There are many countries in which the media are controlled by the State and Internet access is carried out under extreme censorship. But few places on the planet would be able to surpass the ex-Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, where the authorities have prohibited using the word “coronavirus”, an exhaustive way of suppressing any information about the pandemic that plagues the entire planet. The term has even disappeared from medical brochures distributed in schools, hospitals and workplaces, according to data collected by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which details how plainclothes police officers arrest passers-by who talk about the coronavirus at stops. bus and in the queues of stores, or also to those who wear a mask. The regime that Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow leads with an iron hand has displayed extravagances, such as ordering a six-meter equestrian statue on white marble and gold plated or banning black cars, but his attitude towards the health emergency is irresponsible and borderline criminality by leaving the population unprotected.
This autarkic republic in Central Asia has little to envy Belarus, also in the ex-Soviet orbit. Its president, Alexander Lukashenko, has recommended his fellow citizens to play ice hockey and drink vodka as a recipe against Covid-19. Its neighbor, almighty Russia, has also imposed a tight information control system, according to RSF, which realizes that Russian journalists covering the coronavirus are under attack by the media control agency.
Taking advantage of the pandemic, many countries far from democratic standards have intensified censorship. Journalists further accuse the lack of transparency if possible and quarantine official information. And while RSF insists that the coronavirus crisis should not be used as a pretext for states to strengthen their control over the media and block information, in Egypt web pages are torpedoed for "raising public concern"; in Jordan the circulation of the paper press has been suspended during the state of emergency under the unfounded belief that print newspapers are potential vectors of the virus, and in Israel its sophisticated technology used to combat terrorism has now been redirected towards the movements of journalists, so that all those who have to travel to conduct interviews and gather information will be tracked through a geolocation system through their mobile phones. When the intelligence services of a country - of any country - assume the supervision of the press, freedom of information is being put in check.
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