Leaders around the world consolidate control as virus spreads

The world has rarely been more ripe for power grabs, and Hungary's Viktor Orbán is not the only leader taking advantage.

The big picture: Emergency laws in Serbia and Cambodia also provide leaders near-total power, while governments elsewhere are using the virus as cover to crack down on the media, opposition or minorities, the Economist reports.

• “China chose now to arrest Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy activists and puncture its Basic Law.”
• “Algeria banned street marches that have lasted, off and on, for a year, threatening the elderly ruling elite.”
• “Azerbaijan’s president says the ‘isolation’ of members of the opposition may ‘become a historical necessity.’ Several have been locked up for supposedly violating a lockdown.”
• “In Uganda police raided a shelter housing 20 gay and transgender people and later charged them with ‘congesting in a school-like-dormitory setting within a small house.’”
• “In Turkey at least eight journalists have been arrested on charges of ‘spreading misinformation.’”
• “In Bolivia the interim president, Jeanine Áñez, decreed that those who ‘misinform or cause uncertainty to the population’ can be jailed for one to ten years.”
• “In Fiji there have been more coronavirus-related arrests than diagnostic tests.”

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