Number of Free Countries Is Declining, Study Finds

By Jane A. Morse Staff Writer

Washington - The number of free countries is steadily declining, accord= ing to the latest findings by Freedom House, an independent watchdog or= ganization that monitors the state of democracy and human rights around= the world.

In its recently released report, Freedom in the World 2011, Freedom Hou= se found that only 87 - two fewer than 2009 - of the world's 194 countr= ies could be designated as truly free. Sixty countries were designated = as "partly free," and 47 were considered "not free."

Global freedom - as measured by the level of protection of political ri= ghts and civil liberties of citizens - suffered its fifth consecutive y= ear of decline in 2010, according to Freedom House. This represents the= longest continuous period of decline in the nearly 40 years Freedom Ho= use has been issuing the surveys. Currently, only 43 percent of the wor= ld's population lives in countries considered to be free.

What's to blame for the decline? Bolder authoritarian regimes coupled = with inadequate resistance from democratic countries, says Arch Pudding= ton, director of research at Freedom House.

"The increasing truculence of the world's most powerful authoritarian r= egimes has coincided with a growing inability or unwillingness on the p= art of the world's democracies to meet the authoritarian challenge," Pu= ddington says in the report. He warns that "if the world's democracies = fail to unite and speak out in defense of their own values, despots wil= l continue to gain momentum."

The United States, however, is one democracy that has been making democ= racy and human rights a major part of its foreign policy. U.S. Assistan= t Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Pos= ner, who spoke at a Freedom House panel discussion about the report Jan= uary 13, said the Obama administration is "increasingly in a range of d= iscussions with other governments making clear the link between how the= y perform, how they act on human rights and democracy, and their abilit= y to work with us as a close ally or a partner."

Freedom House gave its lowest possible ratings for both political right= s and civil liberties to Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Nort= h Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. But China,= Egypt, Iran, Russia and Venezuela are cited for having stepped up repr= essive measures with great brazenness, according to the report.

Among the most notorious incidents of 2010, according to the report, wa= s China's effort to persuade the Nobel Prize committee to reject jailed= democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo as an award recipient. When it failed to= do that, Freedom House said, China then pressured foreign governments = to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony and threatened economic= retaliation against Norway, where the awards were presented.

Egypt conducted elections with little hint of transparency, the report = says. Iran arrested hundreds of political activists protesting the 2009= elections, regarded by many as "stolen." Russia showed blatant disrega= rd for judicial independence in its sentencing of regime critic Mikhail= Khodorkovsky. And, Venezuela pushed through legislation allowing Presi= dent Hugo Ch=E1vez to rule by decree, constrain nongovernmental organiz= ations and extend media restrictions to the Internet, the report says.

Among other trends cited by Freedom House is the role of organized crim= e. Mexico, for example, was downgraded by Freedom House from "free" to = "partly free" because of the Mexican government's inability to stem the= tide of violence by drug-trafficking groups.

Most Muslim-majority countries - with the notable exception of Indonesi= a - have failed to make progress in embracing civil rights for their ci= tizens, the report says. And the failure to deal humanely with mass imm= igration, according to Freedom House, has tarnished the civil liberties= score for France and other nations around the world.

On the bright side, Freedom House found improvements for Kenya, Moldova= , Nigeria, the Philippines and Tanzania. And comparatively free and fai= r elections in Kyrgyzstan and Guinea helped pull those countries' ranki= ngs up from "not free" to "partly free."

ENDS

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