Religious discrimination is hindering the covid-19 response

Abstract

As covid-19 takes hold worldwide, fear is fuelling already entrenched religious hatred—and hindering public health, writes Sonia Sarkar

Islam and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Between Religious Practice and Health Protection

“…More than a dozen days after the meeting, Malaysian authorities said more than 600 infections out of 1000 cases of the virus had their source in the Jamaat Tabligh meeting. Despite all efforts, not all participants of the meeting were found and examined (Sarkar, 2020 ).…”

Politics meets healthcare? Religious misinformation in India during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Therefore, like the previous point, we see that Hindutva has been present in Indian society before the pandemic came, and it gets a new occasion to flourish once again. Also note that the recent initiatives (e.g., Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam) taken by the government and supported by many pro-government citizens endorsed the ongoing anti-Muslim and pro-Hindu attitude in India during the pandemic (Apoorvanand, 2020;Sarkar, 2020).…”

The Impact of the Church–State Model for an Effective Guarantee of Religious Freedom: A Study of the Peruvian Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In February and March 2020, the media coverage of COVID-19 produced images of enormous visual impact: Mecca empty, Pope Francis celebrating Holy Week alone in Saint Peter's Square, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre closed, workers disinfecting the wall of the lamentations in Jerusalem and many other places of worship usually that usually receive a massive influx of people now empty. However, the restrictions soon began to have a distorting and even potentially discriminatory effect (Sarkar 2020). The accusations against those religious groups that decided to maintain their large-scale religious ceremonies were swift in these initial months of the pandemic; soon, the media (particularly, in New York Times 2020) and science drew attention to those groups, describing them as "super-spreaders" of COVID-19 (Quadri 2020).…”