Some states are all too happy to crack down on journalists in the name of coronavirus containment

Without monitors on the ground – whether reporters, NGO workers or human rights researchers – many fear many abuses of power could go unnoticed, writes Bel Trew

Security forces respond to the coronavirus outbreak in Beirut, Lebanon (Anadolu Agency/Getty)

The Lebanese security forces have started roving Beirut with loudspeakers, telling people to stay inside or risk hefty penalties. The military circle the skies in helicopters with a similar message that filters, godlike, from the clouds.

Under “normal” circumstances, during other military-imposed curfews, journalists would probably risk breaking the restrictions to report. For the first time, everyone is thinking twice.

There are few instances where journalists or those with monitoring roles like human rights researchers are told not to go into the field and cover the story.

Under fire, curfews, border closures, arrests, kidnappings, assassinations – we usually have to cleverly navigate these dangers, on the assumption that performing our work is more valuable than assuring our safety.

Yet now, travel and public health restrictions have grounded most reporters, and many NGO workers, for good reason.

Because now we are not simply risking our own lives by leaving our houses to do our reporting work, but the lives of everyone around us. A single face-to-face interview could spread Covid-19.

This is something to bear in mind as we often speak to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Lebanon, from where I am currently reporting, is home to an extremely large refugee population, including 1.5 million from Syria, the largest number of Syrian refugees per capita in the world.

Some of the Syrian refugees, who do not have legal status, live in ramshackle tent-towns in places like the Beqaa Valley. There, where the government has ordered a sort of lockdown, they have little access to healthcare, no work and poor nutrition. There is not enough water nor sanitation products to wash their hands to the tune of “happy birthday”. Overcrowded tents don’t permit social distancing, let alone self-isolation.

The world must know their desperate situation, so they can help protect them.

Even if it was possible to get there, who could possibly stomach potentially being patient zero to a coronavirus outbreak that would likely ravage the camps?

Without monitors on the ground – whether reporters, NGO workers or human rights researchers – many fear many state abuses of power could go unnoticed. This is particularly acute as many governments are currently pushing through draconian emergency legislation awarding them unprecedented powers while curtailing freedoms, nominally in order to fight the virus.

Israel, Iran and China, for example, have all greenlit mobile-phone tracking in order to map outbreaks; Egypt has withdrawn press accreditation and detained human rights workers over their coverage of Covid-19; Thailand has taken similar measures.

Human rights workers in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories have told me this week they were finding it hard to confirm whether Israeli security forces have continued demolishing Palestinian homes (often in violation of international law), because they do not have their network of researchers on the ground.

We are going to have to find radical ways to circumnavigate this challenge.

Human Rights Watch recently announced that it has stopped international work travel for its researchers for now, but has vowed to keep reporting via phone calls, emails, messaging apps and social media. We will see the same tools deployed by journalists, who can also use satellite imagery and open-source data to track rights violations and developments across the world. Of course, these methods are not new – we developed many of them covering conflicts like Syria, where for long stretches it has been difficult to get access.

As the world experiences this nightmare, journalists have a responsibility not to stir panic or to magnify the misery; we must deliver the news soberly. That means not accidentally falling prey to the shifting agendas of politicians. This means calling out our governments and even our colleagues when they do.

Just because we may not be able to get to the field to verify with our own eyes, that does not mean we cannot still dig out the truth.

This will be even more important as the news stories collide when we witness coronavirus reach war-ravaged areas like Syria, Gaza and Yemen – where health care systems are already destroyed.

It might be trickier than jumping on a plane or into a car, but there are ways to report from afar. For 2020, we will be relying on them.