Safoora Zargar was more than three months pregnant when she was arrested in the Indian capital Delhi for participating in a protest against a controversial citizenship law. It was 10 April, and the pandemic was just beginning to take root in India. The government's own advice said pregnant women were particularly vulnerable to infection, but for more than two months she was held in the overcrowded Tihar jail. "They'd tell other prisoners not to talk to me. They'd told them I was a terrorist who'd killed Hindus. Now these people didn't know about the protests, they didn't know I was jailed for participating in a protest," she told the AFP's Geeta Pandey in Delhi after her release. Her crime had been taking part in widespread protests against the law which critics say targets the Muslim community. The demonstrations had captured the imagination of the country and attracted global attention. But there were no protests in the street demanding her release. There couldn't be: India was under one of the world's strictest lockdowns, with people confined to their homes. Her arrest was one of many which took place during this time. And it was not just India. Activists say numerous governments across Asia used the cloak of coronavirus to implement laws, carry out arrests, or push through controversial schemes which otherwise would have sparked a backlash, both at home and abroad. But instead of a backlash, many governments have seen their popularity increase as people turned to them for direction during the crisis. "The virus is the enemy and people are put on a war footing. This allows governments to pass oppressive laws in the name of 'battling' the pandemic," Josef Benedict of Civicus, a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists, said. "This has meant that human and civic rights have taken a step back." Indeed, Civicus's latest report, "Attack on people power", says the Asia Pacific region has seen "attempts by numerous governments to stifle dissent by censoring reports of state abuses, including in relation to their handling of the pandemic". It cites increased surveillance and tracking - currently used for contact tracing - as well as the imposition of strict laws intended to stifle any criticism as some of the ways in which this happens. Given that many of these measures are introduced as a response to the pandemic, there is little to no resistance against them. The Civicus report states that at least 26 countries in the region have seen harsh legislation, while another 16 have seen human rights defenders prosecuted.