While addressing a parliamentary committee, Amal Clooney stated that the ongoing health crisis has only served to make things worse for an existing human rights crisis.
"As a barrister, I focus on representing victims of human rights abuses and I'm seeing through this work that the current health crisis has only served to exacerbate what was an existing human rights crisis. Abuses, as you know, thrive when no one is watching. And new powers seized by autocratic governments in the name of a pandemic are unlikely to be rescinded when it has passed."
Amal Clooney then went on to talk about how the majority of nations have reportedly started some new laws over people.
"Yet in the last two months, we have seen more than 80 governments rush through emergency laws that grant them sweeping new powers over their people. Governments have criminalized so-called fake news on the pandemic and had scores of journalists arrested while deadly untruths have spread."
Clooney's address was ended by her talking about the international crimes from genocide in Iraq and Myanmar to war crimes in Syria and Yemen remains unpunished.
Amal Clooney on human rights abusers
Amal Clooney specializes in international and human rights. She is noted for having high-profile clients that include Julian Assange — the founder of WikiLeaks, Yulia Tymoshenko — the former prime minister of Ukraine, and Nobel Prize laureate Nadia Murad.
This is not the first time in recent days when Amal Clooney has given voice against human rights abuses. Last week only, she urged Australia to go after those companies who are a part of human rights abuses, including against Uighur Muslims in China.
"We need to address the balance where it may be profitable to do these kinds of things and at the moment there are no penalties," she said.
It was previously reported by The Sydney Morning Herald that surveillance companies like Dahua and Hikvision from China were banned in the United States over concerns they were reportedly creating a surveillance network in the Xinjiang region.
The acclaimed human rights lawyer further urged Australia to create laws broad enough that can handle several types of human rights violations and corruption.
