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Balkan Beats
I have a voice
Can we still fight for our rights?
by Felicia Vigliotti
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opin-
ions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.� Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The health crisis that is gripping Europe has managed to show all its weaknesses. At the heart of the European Union, where the democratic deficit is increasingly evident, a tragedy of values is developing. How much freedom of speech are governments willing to sacrifice to impose their will?
took a back seat when in March the Prime Minister Viktor Orban obtained the green light from Parliament for unlimited powers, the rule of law sounds a long way off.
The pandemic has brought with it questions that
must be answered soon. Problems that deal with the resilience of European democracies struggling and depriving their citizens of their most fundamental right: to express their opinions. Nevertheless, the rebellions against the sick system come first and foremost from those who suffer the consequences of the system. Those who, with an ongoing pandemic, do not give up showing their dissent. Ordinary people.
In this epochal time, the priorities are quite different. That is why some governments have arrogated to themselves the right to act unconditionally at the expense of human rights and personal freedom. When people are unable to leave their homes to protest, the right to be able to express themselves and to express their dissent becomes more than mitigated. Masking subversive and undemocratic measures with the urgency of “The government is calculating that in the midaction against the pandemic puts citizens in an dle of a pandemic they can start discussing the uncomfortable and unchangeable position. draft bill for tightening the anti-abortion law. We When citizens are no longer able to exercise
their fundamental rights, it is legitimate to expect them to react, whatever the external conditions. In Poland, where the government has decided in the last few weeks to amend an already strict abortion law, people are coping with something even worse than a pandemic. The violation of their fundamental rights and freedom of objection. In Hungary, where the Coronavirus
Polish people protesting during the quarantine
Source: Getty
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