Nations in Transit 2009 Full Reports Now Available
Nations in Transit, Freedom House's annual assessment of democratization examines democratic performance in 29 countries from the Baltics to Central Europe to Central Asia.
The overarching conclusion of this year's report is that 2008 was a very difficult year for democracy: scores declined for 18 of the 29 countries, and a record eight countries are now in the “consolidated authoritarian regime” category. Worrying trends highlighted in the previous three editions of Nations in Transit became even more pronounced in 2008, while positive trends lost momentum.
The full country reports from the 2009 edition of Nations in Transit are now available online. To download the reports in PDF format please continue here.
December 10, 2009
International Human Rights Day: Protecting Human Rights on the net
The inaugural edition of Viewpoint by the Council of Europe addresses the mounting problems of Human Rights threats on the internet. As Kristian Bartholin, one of the brains behind the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Convention said during the show, "Freedom of expression is the basic value for a liberal democratic society". Violations of this fundamental right are rife on the internet, with certain countries blocking entire websites, censoring content and even blocking access to certain domain names.
January 12, 2010
Freedom in the World 2010 Survey Release
On January 12, Freedom House released its findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey’s findings, 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline—the longest consecutive period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. These declines were most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, although they also occurred in most other regions of the world. Furthermore, the erosion in freedom took place during a year marked by intensified repression against human rights defenders and democracy activists by many of the world’s most powerful authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China. Freedom in the World 2010 reflects developments that took place in the calendar year 2009. The full survey, including the individual country reports, will be available in late spring 2010.