Bolsonaro's challenges and problems after 3 years in power 3:36
(CNN) -
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has "tried to sabotage efforts to curb the spread of covid-19 in Brazil and has applied other policies that undermine human rights," according to a report by the organization Human Rights Watch.
In its 2021 World Report released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch says Bolsonaro repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus by calling it "a little flu" and by spreading misleading information about the pandemic.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he will not get the covid-19 vaccine
Bolsonaro “refused to take steps to protect himself and the people around him, spread misleading information, and tried to prevent states from imposing social distancing rules.
His administration tried to hide covid-19 data from the public.
He fired his health minister for upholding the World Health Organization's recommendations, and the health minister who replaced him resigned in opposition to the president's defense of an unproven drug to treat COVID-19, ”the report says.
The role of other institutions before Bolsonaro
Anna Livia Arida, associate director of Human Rights Watch for Brazil, acknowledged the role of other government institutions, such as the Supreme Court and the Brazilian Congress, in helping to "block many, but not all, of Bolsonaro's anti-rights policies." .
“The Supreme Court ruled against the Bolsonaro administration's attempts to strip states of the authority to restrict people's movements to contain the spread of covid-19, effectively suspend the access to information law, and retain Covid-19 data from the public, ”the report says.
Bolsonaro downplays the severity of the pandemic and uses homophobic insult
"Congress approved a bill that obliges the government to provide emergency medical care to indigenous peoples and the Supreme Court ordered the Bolsonaro government to draft a plan to combat the spread of covid-19 in indigenous territories," he continued.
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The response of the Bolsonaro government
According to CNN Brazil, the South American country's Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights issued a statement Wednesday in which it argues that the report "ignores the measures taken by the government to protect human rights during the pandemic." .
Numerous projects aimed at helping children, adolescents, women and the elderly are mentioned in the statement, in which they are defined as "a form of government assistance to the socioeconomic developments that occurred in the pandemic," CNN Brazil reported.
CNN has reached out to Bolsonaro's office for comment.
Brazil has the third highest count of covid-19 cases worldwide, after the United States and India.
As of Wednesday, Brazil has reported 8,256,536 cases of covid-19 and 205,964 deaths related to the virus.
CoronavirusHuman RightsHuman Rights WatchJair Bolsonaro
