monday, april 6 , 2020. the washington post ez re A
the coronavirus pandemic
BY ISABELLE KHURSHUDYANMOSCOW — As soon as the digital
code is created on a cellphone, the
clock is ticking. It allows three
hours to shop at the nearest gro-
cery store or pharmacy or to visit a
doctor. One hour is allotted to walk
the dog. Ta king out the trash
should take no more than 30 min-
utes.
Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod re-
gion, about 250 miles northeast of
Moscow, boosted its coronavirus-
control measures Saturday by add-
ing a system of downloadable QR
codes — those square bar code
mazes of lines and boxes — in the
latest attempt to use tracking tech-
nology to battle the pandemic.
But Moscow — which normally
sets the tone for the rest of the
country — backed off from deploy-
ing a similar system of time-specif-
ic QR codes. Moscow officials said a
decrease in foot traffic around the
capital made the plan unnecessary.
The decision came as Moscow’s
mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, acknowl-
edged that “a huge number of ques-
tions arose” a bout requiring a QR-
code pass to move around the city.
And opposition politicians and
rights groups pushed back hard.
‘Digital concentration camp’
Daria Besedina, a Moscow oppo-
sition lawmaker, said the measures
were akin to a “digital concentra-
tion camp.”
Moscow’s about-face on the QR
codes is more than a simple change
of plans. Russia under President
Vladimir Putin appears to be less
willing to embrace the kind of
sweeping state-run tracking fa-
vored by other authoritarian na-
tions amid the coronavirus pan-
demic, perhaps mindful of provok-
ing public anger and worry that the
monitoring could become a per-
manent fact of life.
In a televised national address
Thursday, P utin transferred the re-
sponsibility of adopting coronavi-
rus-related restrictions to local
governments. That’s turned some
of Russia’s regions into testing
grounds for how much increased
surveillance citizens will accept,
while sheltering the Kremlin from
any blowback.
Russia’s confirmed novel coro-
navirus cases have multiplied in
the past two weeks. Officials said
there are 4,731 confirmed cases as
of Saturday and 43 deaths.
Still, the relatively low level of
spread has not yet pushed Putin’s
government to make decisions on
whether to follow other countries
and ramp up the state-surveillance
machinery beyond facial recogni-
tion.
China’s measures have included
drones and digital bar codes on
mobile apps that reveal a person’s
health status. Singapore rolled out
an app that uses Bluetooth signals
between cellphones to see whether
potential carriers of the coronavi-
rus have been in close contact with
other people. Israel is tracking its
citizens through their cellphone
location data.Russia’s tougher rules
Russia’s parliament swiftly
passed legislation last week creat-
ing severe penalties, including a
possible prison sentence, for
breaking quarantine rules. In M os-
cow, police patrols are light, but
officers still perform random stops
to ensure people are shopping or
have other legitimate business
away f rom home, such as a medical
visit.
The city’s authorities also
warned that its more than 170,
cameras are watching for anyone
trying to skirt the rules.
“We think it can lead to unau-
thorized access and therefore to
the mass infringement of people’s
privacy,” said Sarkis Darbinyan of
Roskomsvoboda, a digital rights
group. “This is a concern right nowin the Russian society.”
Moscow officials say the QR sys-
tem remains an option in the capi-
tal, which has about 70 percent of
Russia’s confirmed coronavirus
cases. Sobyanin, the city’s mayor,
said the QR-code passes are ready
for use and will be required “in case
of an unfavorable development in
the epidemiological situation or in
the case of an increase in the num-
ber of violations of the stay-at-
home order.”
Experts were skeptical that
Moscow could have the system
functional in just one week.
Andrei Soldatov, author of “The
Red Web: The Struggle Between
Russia’s Digital Dictators and the
New Online Revolutionaries,” s aid
it would entail “building up an
entirely new huge database fromscratch and then getting all people
living in Moscow to provide their
personal data to that database.”
But he added that “when fear
runs the city, as it is in Moscow
these days, the authorities could do
almost anything in terms of sur-
veillance.”Tracking the infected
Moscow is opting against test-
ing that idea with its general popu-
lation for now.
But a separate app, to track pa-
tients who have tested positive for
the coronavirus, briefly appeared
in the Google Play store on March
25 before it was removed, appar-
ently made public too early by Rus-
sian officials.
Called “Social Monitoring,” t he
app requested access to a user’slocation, camera, audio and any
wearable devices. Though the QR-
code system has been temporarily
tabled, “Social Monitoring” s eems
to be going ahead.
In an interview with the inde-
pendent Echo of Moscow radio sta-
tion, Eduard Lysenko, the head of
Moscow’s Department of Informa-
tion Te chnologies, said anyone
against installing the app on their
phone could opt to receive a tem-
porary cellphone from the city to
carry the app.
“These measures are absolutely
crazy, and they will not only allow
enforcement in this case,” said
Besedina, the opposition lawmak-
er. “It is something that will open a
possibility for later misuse when
controlling people.”
Putin’s d eclaration that regional
governments can largely do as they
wish where the coronavirus is con-
cerned gave Nizhny Novgorod the
greenlight to try out its QR-code
pass system. In announcing the
measure, the governor, Gleb Niki-
tin, said: “I understand there will
be many skeptical comments.”
In a statement to The Washing-
ton Post, Nizhny Novgorod’s press
office said: “It is assumed that the
app can use the GPS function for
geolocation. In cases where the
GPS function is not available, ac-
cess to the subscriber’s network
connections — cell towers or WiFi
access points — can be used to
determine the approximate loca-
tion.”
The statement added that there
are no plans to use microphone
access, “none of the app’s f unctions
can be used covertly” or for any
unrelated purpose, and “personal
data received by the application
will be securely protected in accor-
dance with the requirements of
current legislation. Their transfer
to third parties will be excluded.”
Russia’s republic of Ta tarstan
also introduced digital passes,
though via text message.
“I fear that there’s a danger,”
Besedina said, “because when you
crack down on people, when you
stop trusting them, the mistrust is
mutual.”
isa [email protected]svetlana ivanova contributed to this
report.In Russia, local governments test limits of surveillance
maxim shipenkov/epa-eFe/shutterstock
Posters depict Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and a bulldozer at the construction site of a hospital for covid-19 patients outside the city on
March 2 5. Moscow has not deployed time-specific mobile tracking to combat the coronavirus, but other regions are pushing ahead.BY LOUISA LOVELUCK,
ROBYN DIXON
AND ADAM TAYLORLONDON — When a flu-like virus
tore through the world, killing
tens of millions and infecting far
more, the papers in Europe told
readers of “Spanish flu.” King
Alfonso XIII of Spain was one of
many stricken, they reported in
- What they didn’t say was
that their own populations were
being decimated, too.
It was the largest pandemic in
modern history, but due to war-
time censorship in many E urope-
an countries, few citizens would
know it at first. Only Spain, a
nation neutral in the fight, al-
lowed its press to work largely
uncensored, and so it was that
stories of the contagion spread,
too.
A century later, the novel coro-
navirus is again testing the resil-
ience of independent media
around the world as govern-
ments exploit concerns over cov-
erage of the epidemic to clamp
down on press freedoms.
From Latin America to Russia,
governments have tried to shape
coverage so it avoids criticism or
information that authorities
deem harmful to public order.
Questioning of official accounts
has drawn fines, police investiga-
tions and the expulsion of for-
eign correspondents. In some
countries, the virus has provided
a pretext for governments to pass
emergency legislation that is
likely to c urb freedoms long a fter
the contagion has been extin-
guished.
The consequences could
amount to life or death, free-
press advocates say.
“During a public health emer-
gency, t here are extremely strong
requirements of governments to
provide truthful information to
the public so that we as individu-
als and in our communities can
make decisions about what we
should be doing,” said David
Kaye, the United Nations’ special
rapporteur on freedom of opin-
ion and expression. “That de-
pends on a vibrant press that
doesn’t feel that when it reports
that it could be subject to intimi-
dation, threats or even criminal
sanction.”
Press credentials revoked,
suspended
In the Middle East, govern-
ments have detained or other-
wise punished reporters who
question the state’s response to
the epidemic. Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates have
announced fines in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars for indi-
viduals deemed to be sharing
fake news, a fluid term that press
advocates have long described as
open to abuse by governments
seeking to quash scrutiny.
As Iraqi doctors work over-
time to contain the spread of the
virus, authorities in Baghdad
said Thursday they were tempo-
rarily suspending the Reuters
news agency’s license to work,
after it published a report sug-
gesting there may be thousands
more confirmed cases in Iraq
than the figure of 772 provided
by the Health Ministry.
Similarly, Egypt said last
month that it was revoking the
press credentials of the Guard-
ian’s correspondent there, Ruth
Michaelson, after she reported
on a study by a team of infec-
tious-disease specialists, mostly
based in C anada, t hat questioned
Egypt’s official number of coro-
navirus cases. She was forced to
leave the country days later.
In Turkey, where the govern-
ment of President Recep Ta yyip
Erdogan is one of the world’s
leading jailers of journalists, fig-
ures are released daily for the
number of people who have died
or been infected with the virus,
as well as the number of tests
health officials have conducted.
But authorities for weeks kept a
tight lid on other information,
including the location of cases in
Turkey, on the grounds that pub-licizing the information might
lead to an exodus from trouble
spots and further the spread of
the virus.
According to Reporters With-
out Borders, eight Turkish jour-
nalists are waiting to learn
whether they will face charges,
after prosecutors interrogated
them over their covid-19 report-
ing.
Some of those detentions
smacked of panic. A newspaper
owner and an editor in the
northern Turkish city of Bartin
were detained in mid-March for
publishing a headline saying a
local doctor had tested positive
for coronavirus, according to
Baris Yarkadas, a former opposi-
tion member of parliament who
tweeted about the arrests. The
two were accused of “inciting the
public to panic,” Yarkadas wrote.
He added that the charge was
“strange,” because the local gov-
ernment confirmed the news
about the doctor about an hour
after the journalists were de-
tained.A pretext to crack down on
free speech
In many former Soviet coun-
tries, repression of journalists,
activists and opposition figures
has long been stifling, and some
governments have used the
covid-19 crisis as a pretext to
further tighten control, using
bans on “fake news” and disin-
formation.
Russian media that question
official figures or the state’s re-
sponse t o the virus r un t he risk o f
steep fines or having their licens-es stripped. In Armenia, journal-
ists have complained that offi-
cials have forced them to change
stories or remove them, while
Azerbaijani opposition figures
have been arrested for posting
criticisms on social media of
their government’s handling of
the crisis. In Belarus, Sergey
Satsouk, director and editor of
the news website Ezhednevnik,
was arrested in late March, after
critical coverage of the govern-
ment’s handling of the coronavi-
rus outbreak.
Russian state media watchdog
Roskomnadzor has warned
against p ublication of false i nfor-
mation that could “create a
th reat of massive disruption of
public order and public safety.”
Several outlets have been or-
dered to remove reports suggest-
ing that virus cases might be
greater than official figures. Indi-
viduals convicted of spreading
alleged fake news face fines of up
to $6,400, and action has been
taken against ordinary citizens
for social media posts as well.
In Azerbaijan, President Il-
ham Aliyev is using the crisis to
crack down on free speech,
amending the country’s informa-
tion law so website owners are
obliged to prevent the publica-
tion of “false information” about
a wide-ranging list of topics,
from the health system to trans-
port networks.
Sir Roger Gale, a rapporteur
on Azerbaijan with the Parlia-
mentary A ssembly of the Council
of Europe, described the govern-
ment moves as a “shameful ex-
ploitation” of the pandemic.“It beggars belief that any
head of state would abuse a
public health emergency to tight-
en his grip on power,” he said.‘Dropping the facade of
democracy’
Echoes of that playbook are
being heard around the world.
On Saturday, police in the Philip-
pines charged a television sta-
tion owner and an online report-
er under a new law that imposes
a punishment of two months in
jail or a fine of almost $20,
for publishing what the govern-
ment deems false news about the
virus.
In Hungary, which has had at
least 600 cases and 25 deaths,
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s
government has pushed an
emergency bill that formalizes a
years-long slide from democracy
into dictatorship.
“The emergency bill, more
than anything, is about dropping
the facade of democracy in Hun-
gary,” said Zselyke Csaky, Free-
dom House’s research director
for Europe and Eurasia.
Passed by Hungary’s parlia-
ment Monday, the law allows the
government to declare a state of
emergency for as long as Orban
sees fit, and punishes those who
“distort” or publish “false” i nfor-
mation on the outbreak with five
years in jail.
The move will probably have
devastating effects on what re-
mains of the country’s already
embattled independent press,
and at a crucial point in a public
health crisis, Csaky said. “Per-
haps, if we are hopeful, o ne silverlining could be that once this is
over, people realize how impor-
tant it is to have access to news
that one can trust,” s he said.
In a letter to Marija Pejcinovic
Buric, secretary general of the
Council of Europe, Orban dis-
missed the international criti-
cism, urging critics to read the
law itself again. “If you are not
able to help us in the current
crisis, please at l east refrain from
hindering our defensive efforts,”
the prime minister wrote.
But pro-Orban commentators
have publicly joked about critical
journalists being arrested and
argued that those who criticize
the government’s proposed re-
strictions are siding with the
coronavirus.
Hungary is in a “war situa-
tion,” t he pro-government editor
and historian Marton Bekes told
viewers on a current affairs show
recently. And some opposition
outlets, he said, were “openly
rooting for the virus.”
In Latin America, journalists
are facing similar pressures.
Honduras also has declared a
state of emergency, withdrawing
the legal guarantees for journal-
ists to work without being sub-
jected to “any kind of persecu-
tion.”
In Brazil, President Jair Bol-
sonaro moved to indefinitely ex-
tend deadlines for freedom of
information requests with a late-
night decree t hat press advocates
said would have deprived the
public of information at a time
when it most needs it.
The country’s supreme court
temporarily stayed his decree.
(In India, likewise, that country’s
supreme court denied a govern-
ment request that news outlets
be ordered to refrain from pub-
lishing on the virus without
official clearance.)
And in Venezuela, authorities
arrested journalist Darvinson
Rojas and interrogated him
about his reporting on the coun-
try’s coronavirus outbreak, at
one point suggesting that he was
himself infected.
He live-tweeted part of the
interrogation.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]dixon reported from moscow and
taylor from Washington. kevin sieff
in mexico city, terrence mccoy in
rio de janeiro and kareem Fahim in
istanbul contributed to this report.Journalists threatened and detained as many countries restrict coverage
murad orujov/sputnik/associated press
A covid-19 warning is posted in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan
imposed a nationwide lockdown from March 3 1 until April 2 0.leonardo Fernandez viloria/getty images
A man in Caracas reads a newspaper with the headline “Venezuela
united against the coronavirus.”