With this appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, we ask  her to prevent new lockdowns from being implemented worldwide. 

To the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet

Given that the health emergency linked to the spread of Sars-Cov-2 has represented in the past six months and continues to represent a challenge for all peoples around the world, from all points of view, with this appeal we want to focus mainly on its effects on human rights. Everywhere the governments, to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, have adopted very restrictive measures of internationally protected personal freedoms and human rights; in some countries these measures have been so strict that people have been unable to leave their home for several consecutive months, although the constitutional systems of these same countries do not provide for the possibility of limiting the freedom of movement of individuals in such an extreme way - in this regard, we would like to remind you that an Italian judge has recently declared the state of emergency illegitimate in this country, as it is not contemplated by the Italian Constitution for health emergencies; in the final part of the sentence we read that “public health measures in Italy have been adopted on the model of those adopted in China, an undemocratic state that has an authoritarian constitutional order incompatible with the Italian one based on inviolable individual guarantees”. This last statement is true also for all other democratic states in the world, in which individual freedoms are inviolable. Schools have been closed in almost all states of the world, with incalculable harm to children and young people, as distance learning presents innumerable problems (distance learning is more tiring and demotivating than traditional learning because it lacks socialization and human contact; not all the students have access to an Internet connection or to a device to follow online lessons; in many homes there is not enough space to allow a student to concentrate on distance learning): the universal right to education has been among the most affected in these months and yet we have no idea what the long-term consequences of this will be. Many people have lost their jobs as a result of the lockdown and many others, due to social distancing, which is an unnatural condition for man, have fallen into depression; suicide cases have been reported due to forced isolation. It therefore seems that in these months the protection of the right to health has concerned only the physical aspect and not the psychological one, although the WHO statute puts both on the same level. During the lockdown in some countries surveillance and control over citizens have been so systematic to give them the impression of living in a police state and no longer in a state of law: everywhere in the world people have been persecuted for violating the lockdown, and this is because in most states the quarantine has been imposed on everyone, even on healthy people, on the assumption, questioned by one of the latest WHO statements, that even asymptomatics can transmit the disease. But also with the normalization of the epidemiological situation and the end of the lockdown, many measures restricting individual and social freedoms have been maintained in almost all states and they are still in effect. Social distancing, besides going against the very essence of human nature, severely limits the enjoyment of the social rights recognized by the international and European human rights papers and by many constitutions of the states in the world. The right of individuals to reunite with other people for peaceful purposes is a cornerstone of democratic states; yet, it is the one most affected by the health measures adopted to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. How long this right will be compressed in the name of the fight against the virus? Everywhere in the world people are starting to claim the restoration of this fundamental human right putting an end to the rule of social distancing. A prolonged adoption of this measure which prohibits people from joining freely risks distorting the very nature of democratic societies. Therefore, the long-term damage caused by the imposition of the new dogma of social distancing appears to us to be much more serious than those caused by the health emergency itself.

For all these reasons, we appeal to you to officially address to all the heads of state of the world to dissuade them from continuing to adopt measures so harmful to individual and social freedoms, in consideration of the fact that the protection of the right to physical health alone cannot for an indefinite period of time compromise the enjoyment of all other internationally recognized rights, in particular that of meeting peacefully with other people. The same obligation to wear a mask cannot be continued for too long, because, especially as regards western peoples, this imposition undermines the constitutive values ​​of freedom of democratic states and prevents a healthy social life. We appeal to you also and above all to dissuade governments from adopting new lockdowns, which would be catastrophic from an economic, educational, social and psychological point of view. Given that sars-cov-2 presents a lethal character above all for the elderly population already affected by other diseases, a possible second wave could be managed by inviting the most vulnerable subjects to self-quarantine, avoiding the humanitarian disaster which will inevitably result with a new generalized lockdown.

In faith, the signatories