[t]http://i.imgur.com/yuLSx.png[/t]
[quote]Here are the biggest winners and losers in the organization’s “freedom score” over the past three years:[/quote]
[img]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/01/chart_1-4.png[/img]
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/16/which-countries-are-most-free-and-most-oppressive/[/url]
[quote=Washington Post]As Libya, Egypt and a handful of African countries have become more open and democratic in the past year, Mali and some of its neighbors have become dramatically less so, according to [url=http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FIW%202013%20Booklet.pdf]a new report[/url] from the democracy watchdog Freedom House.
The organization classifies countries as either “Free,” meaning there is open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties and independent media; “Partly Free,” meaning there is corruption, weak rule of law and ethnic strife; and “Not Free,” in which basic political and civil liberties are absent.
The report also offers a neat look at how major world events over the past year have impacted day-to-day rights and liberties:
[B]1) Mali lost its glow:[/B] Mali suffered a precipitous decline of two tiers, from “Free” to “Not Free.” The once-model democracy took hits from the Tuareg rebellion, a military coup and the takeover in its northern region by Islamist militants.
[B]2) The worst of the worst:[/B] Nine countries have the organization’s lowest rating, 7, for both political rights and civil liberties: Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There’s [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/brothers-of-north-koreas-kim-jong-eun-notably-absent/2013/01/07/8eb74ac8-5653-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html]no shortage of examples[/url] of North Korea’s human rights abuses, and earlier this year we also wrote about the worrying situation in Uzbekistan, [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/12/songs-of-a-tyrant-meet-googoosha-dictators-daughter-and-pop-star/]where dictator Islam Karimov[/url] and his family amass power and wealth at the expense of citizens.
[B]3) Progress in Libya, less so in Egypt:[/B] Libya was one of the biggest gainers, advancing from “Not Free” to “Partly Free” and seeing one of the largest year-over-year increases in rights in the report’s 40-year history. As the Post’s [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/bee-gees-blaring-in-post-gaddafi-tripoli/2012/11/14/ba643bde-2ce8-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_story.html]Abigail Hauslohner reported[/url], post-Gaddafi Libya is still not “what you’d call fun,” but life there is slowly becoming more normal after the former dictator’s fall.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s experience was more measured. While direct military rule came to an end through the election of President Mohammed Morsi, the [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypts-christians-worried-by-islamists-rise/2013/01/07/9db90546-58f3-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html]new constitution was drafted[/url] without the input of many of the country’s minority groups, and questions about the true extent of democratic freedoms persist.
[B]4) The world is getting less free:[/B] More countries registered declines than gains in freedom over the course of 2012. “This marks the seventh consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements,” the report found. More than a third of the world’s population lives in “Not Free” countries, although half of them live in China.
[B]5) Eurasia is the new Middle East:[/B] Eurasian countries fared especially poorly, in large part because Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/putin-russia-timeline/]a series of harsh laws[/url] meant to crack down on dissent, the authors wrote. According to Freedom House, Eurasia now rivals the Middle East as “one of the most repressive areas of the globe” because autocrats rule most of its 12 countries.
[B]6) Burma is now more free than China:[/B] The report cites near-constant communications censorship, arbitrary detentions and a crackdown in Tibet for China’s continued low freedom rating.
“Indeed, despite prominent rhetoric about fighting corruption, the last weeks of the year were marked by official speeches, state media pronouncements, and practical measures designed to justify or implement increased control over online communications,” the authors found.
While Burma is still considered Not Free, its main opposition political party was allowed to participate in the country’s 2012 parliamentary elections, boosting its political freedom score. Over the past few years, [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/10/why-obamas-trip-to-burma-is-such-a-big-deal/]Burma has also freed[/url] hundreds of political prisoners, relaxed restrictions and moved away from China, its longtime patron.[/quote]
What're you doing, Mali?! Get it together!
[QUOTE=Cheat_God;39247173]What're you doing, Mali?! Get it together![/QUOTE]
Before the coup they were one of the most free and stable countries in Africa :(
mali y u do dis
Don't worry you guys, the French have Mali's back on this one.
And the British, and the Americans, and the Germans, and the Spanish...
Hmm, I thought russia was freer than it was.
Probably because of Putin, but Russia has had problems for a long while now.
I wish to see this map, one day in the future of my lifetime, painted green.
Ukraine :(
Russia :((
Ukraine claims to be a buffer but they seem to be finlandizing.
I was actually expecting Hong Kong to be in the green for some reason.
Poor Tibet.
[QUOTE=Ymir;39248429]I was actually expecting Hong Kong to be in the green for some reason.[/QUOTE]
Even after a few decades of military government, Taiwan ended up more free than Hong Kong or Macau. Kind of surprising, when you think about the history of it.
[QUOTE=Ymir;39248429]I was actually expecting Hong Kong to be in the green for some reason.[/QUOTE]
If it was still under the British that would probably be the case, however instead they're under the corrupt Chinese government rule.
Hong Kong got a very high score in civil liberties; it's political freedom that dragged them down, because they have an unusual electoral system where about half the Legislative Council members are elected by "functional constituencies" - representatives of various businesses and sectors who generally vote for pro-Beijing candidates.
But for much of British rule (until 1986) Hong Kong had no elections at all, so I don't know that it was that much better back then.
And it was actually the British that invented functional constituencies. I'd love to know why.
There is a roadmap to having the Chief Executive and the whole LegCo elected directly, but it's going very slowly. The Chief Executive (currently elected by the LegCo) is meant to be directly elected by 2017, and the LegCo is going to follow at an undefined point afterwards.
Where is the US?
What unit of measurement are they using for freedom?
[QUOTE=T3hW1nn3r;39248720]Where is the US?[/QUOTE]
Right under canada!
*badum-tssh*
[editline]16th January 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Lanopo;39248745]What unit of measurement are they using for freedom?[/QUOTE]
Eagle Tears
I know I'll probably get boxes for this but how isn't Russia at least yellow?
[QUOTE=Lanopo;39248745]What unit of measurement are they using for freedom?[/QUOTE]
millifrees
But muh freedoms.
I always thought Kenya was a pretty free and well developing country, apparently not to that degree.
Also, good on Mongolia for being a green in a sea of purple.
[QUOTE=smurfy;39248707]Hong Kong got a very high score in civil liberties; it's political freedom that dragged them down, because they have an unusual electoral system where about half the Legislative Council members are elected by "functional constituencies" - representatives of various businesses and sectors who generally vote for pro-Beijing candidates.
But for much of British rule (until 1986) Hong Kong had no elections at all, so I don't know that it was that much better back then.
And it was actually the British that invented functional constituencies. I'd love to know why.
There is a roadmap to having the Chief Executive and the whole LegCo elected directly, but it's going very slowly. The Chief Executive (currently elected by the LegCo) is meant to be directly elected by 2017, and the LegCo is going to follow at an undefined point afterwards.[/QUOTE]
Which is really terrible all things considered. At the moment Pro-Beijing groups hold about ~71.5% of the seats in the Legislative Council, 43 out of the total 60, but due to electoral regulations, no matter how popular the pro-democracy groups become they would be incapable of winning a majority of the seats in the Legislative Council.
Even more ironically, many of the parties elected in the Pro-Beijing bloc are actually conservative or at least in favour of laissez-faire capitalism, whereas most of the Pro-Democracy bloc's parties are liberal or progressive in some sense.
I might have to disagree with India being as free as the rest of the nations described as such. Governmental perhaps, but their society is still struggling with the caste system and religious tensions with Islamic peoples on the border with Pakistan.
Of course categorizing nations by arbitrarily determined notions of a relativistic concept like freedom is silly to begin with.
Surprised not to see my country (Venezuela) worse.
[QUOTE=smurfy;39247063][B]The world is getting less free[/B][/QUOTE]
Come on, world, what happened? You can do better than this!
EDIT
I'm actually surprised to see Argentina marked as "Free".
[QUOTE=T553412;39252014]Come on, world, what happened? You can do better than this!
EDIT
I'm actually surprised to see Argentina marked as "Free".[/QUOTE]
Well its changed now, it no longer has dictators, but a democracy. Same sex marriage is legal in Argentina aswell.
Wow all those jokes about Madagascar have come true.
They truly have begun to shut down everything
I never realised that Russia had territory between Poland and Lithuania
lel
started to read the comments
oh wow
for something "useless" they sure are upset about it
[QUOTE=RobbL;39254676]I never realised that Russia had territory between Poland and Lithuania[/QUOTE]
They took Kaliningrad from Germany during WWII. Used to be called Konigsberg before that.
[QUOTE=Untouch;39254727]lel
started to read the comments
oh wow
for something "useless" they sure are upset about it[/QUOTE]
[quote]How they are always making speeches about it...
Of course its a completely meaningless term bearing no relation to the real freedoms ,from hunger or disease that really matter..An Indian low caste farm worker may technically be 'free' but what benefit does it give him? Like most ,he cant read has never been to school never drunk a glass of clean water or used a toilet .China which is lifting tens of millions of its people out of poverty every year is apparently still low down the freedom scale..
And America ..how free is America? Do you have freedom of speech in America? Of course you do ,you cry..Yet if at coffee break at work in a school hospital or any government state controlled institution ,I said I was a socialist ,I think I would be out of my job within an hour and the same would apply to any private company ..We simply dont employ socialists.....and even in a pub ..like those on TV shows start talking about politics and say you are a socialist..and there would be a discreet word in your ear..Would you kindly stop talking about politics Sir or leave the premises..
Of course America has registered offices of political parties but thats only a trick...Because if people cant talk about political parties and their policies they can never grow and develop..the only things people are allowed to do is apparently distribute leaflets..
Incidentally Im amazed Freedom House is still going.. it used to be a great stalwart of the cold war ,giving Russia a good kicking now and then..but of course the Americans or those who rule them can never stop hating the Russians Russians and especially Tsar Nicholas II ..Some people have very long memories...[/quote]
I somehow doubt anyone alive remembers nicholas II
Of course Greenland is free.
I don't think there is anyone there to oppress.
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