防控疫情 保障人权(英)

A Battle to Defend the Rights to Life and Health andthe Human Rights Concept Proposed —Six Notes on the Human Rights during the Pandemic Li Junru* (Human Rights, Issue 3, 2020) This COVID-19 pandemic that the human beings have neverencountered hit and swept the world all of a sudden. In China and rest of the world, the prevention and control of the pandemic has become a common issue of social and political life of all countries and regions.Apparently, the outbreak, prevention and control of the pandemic is more than a public health issue, but in fact a prelude to a myriad of problems concerning national governance, diplomacy, values, and particularly human rights. This crisis has triggered a grand battle to defend the rights to life and health, so to speak. It also provided an opportunity to further reflect on and study human rights concept, and seek any improvements and development. During the fight against the pandemic, I have written down a number of notes on human rights as part of my continuing research. Now I selected and published six of them, in hopes that my individual study would encourage wider efforts to promote our idea of human rights. I. The fight against the pandemic highlights the advantage of the Chinese human rights concept As COVID-19 wreaked havoc in Wuhan, China started to suffer a terrible disaster. China has proposed explicit guiding principles of fighting against the pandemic, which can find its tenet in the important instruction by CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping: “People’s lives and health must come first.”1 That is to say people’s rights to life and health must “come first.” From the perspective of human rights, the Chinese people’s fight against the pandemic by mobilizing all resources and blocking the spread of the virus presents to us significant battle to defend the rights to life and health. Throughout the Chinese people’s wholehearted prevention and control of the pandemic, all the decisions and measures adopted by the Party and the government have embodied the important human rights communities across Wuhan, Hubei, and even the nation, we decisively ordered to take “lockdown” measures in Wuhan, a city with a population of over 10 million. In conjunction with that, we implemented measures of joint and group epidemic prevention and control at community level in Wuhan and rest of the country. — The Party and the government urgently mobilized armies as well as medical workers and specialists from across the country, over 40,000 people, to the hot zone. The mobilization was an action in response to the emergent situation of the shortage of medical resources in Wuhan and Hubei, the infection and sickness of medical workers, the failure in timely diagnosis and treatment for patients, and the grave threat to human lives. — To alleviate the severe shortage of medical resources, including masks, protective clothing and ventilators, in Wuhan, Hubei and across the country, and protect the lives of medical workers and people across the country, the state organized enterprises engaged in other sectors to switch production immediately, while mobilizing relevant enterprises to work overtime for the production. — The CPC Central Committee decisively ordered to build Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital against time with the efficiency that humans can achieve, as well as several temporary treatment centers in the mode of field hospitals. By doing so we have saved more lives, as we have tackled the shortage of hospitals and beds, and satisfied the urgent need for separate treatment for confirmed and suspected cases. — In fighting against the pandemic and treating patients day and night, the medical workers bore the greatest hardships. The central government and local Party organizations and governments showed their appreciation to these “angels in white” in various forms. They cared for physical and mental health of the medical workers, and provided support concept put forward by Xi Jinping. This includes the implementation of the policy of “ensuring admission and treatment for all patients” in interim stages, and the policy of “preventing the coronavirus from entering the country and stemming its domestic resurgence” in later stages. More examples are as follows: — Upon spotting the “cases of pneumonia of unknown cause,” we organized teams of experts to figure out the pathogen, and urged the experts to find out the possibility of “human-to-human transmission.” — In order to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 within for the families so that the health professionals would have no trouble back at home. — To meet the needs for life necessity of those staying at home for quarantine, besides going door to door for learning their conditions, community workers and volunteers also worked very hard to provide services and solve problems for the residents. — During the most stressful period of the fight, the State Council Information Office organized multiple press conferences on the daily basis. In the most authoritative form through the domestic and foreign media, the Office helped people obtain full access to information that concerns them the most. — For problems of general concern and reports from the public, authorities would organize investigations and conduct verification in a timely manner, and publish the findings to the society in an open and transparent manner. — On the basis of the investigation and verification, the discipline inspection and supervision departments also issued penalties to officers with serious formalism and bureaucracy, or those who were tending to be slack or utterly ignorant in work, or neglecting their duties. There are many more such examples. From the above ten aspects of decisions or actions, we will be able to tell the following consistent guidelines on action: The human rights concept that people’s rights to life and health must “come first.” It is not a random choice for us to consistently and comprehensively stick to the above human rights concept. It is especially true for the Communist Party of China, the core force leading our undertakings. Firstly, the Party arms itself with historical materialism and recognizes that “the first premise of the whole human history has to be the existence of living individuals.”2 Secondly, the fundamental purpose of the Party is to serve the people wholeheartedly. In the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, it always adheres to the people-centered development concept, and upholds that safety and health are related to the vital interests of every individual. Thirdly, the Party, as the bearer of the brilliant cultural traditions of the Chinese nation, acknowledges the people as the foundation of the state and values life as a treasure above all. What is commendable is that this human rights concept has been widely acclaimed by the 1.4 billion Chinese people when China rose to the challenge of this pandemic. From a holistic point of view, to understand why we are able to secure a signal victory in the prevention and control of COVID-19 pandemic in such a short period before any vaccine is developed, we must boil down all factors into threefold forces: the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, the superiority of the socialism with Chinese characteristics and the national governance system, and the joint efforts of 1.4 billion Chinese people in fighting against the pandemic. From the perspective of human rights, it’s fair to say that China has soundly demonstrated the advantage of the Chinese human rights concept by our people’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.