Freedom takes a hit worldwide

Freedom takes a hit worldwide
A new report by Washington watchdog group Freedom House says a clampdown on political rights made 43 countries 'not free' in 2007.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 17, 2008 edition

Reporter Howard LaFranchi discusses Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2008 report, which found that global political rights and civil liberties have declined for the second year in a row.


Washington - Monks in Burma (Myanmar), lawyers in Pakistan, bloggers in China, and students in Venezuela and Bangladesh: these forces pushing back against restrictive moves by increasingly antidemocratic regimes are among the bright spots that a new report finds in a global trend toward less political freedom in the last year.

"There aren't too many really unifying factors among these activists, no obvious common issues linking the different groups," says Arch Puddington, director of research at Freedom House, the Washington group that issued its annual Freedom in the World report Wednesday. "What they do have in common is that they are rising up against the challenges to freedom in their countries, and they themselves are under considerable pressure."

Silver linings in the form of saffron-robed monks and bloggers aside, those mounting pressures are the central conclusion of the Freedom House findings.

A second consecutive year of freedom's decline – particularly in South Asia, but also in the region of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa – is the main conclusion for 2007 of the annual survey by Freedom House, which monitors trends in political freedoms and advocates their expansion. This is the first time in 15 years the group has seen two consecutive years of decline.

One explanation the report finds for the continuing decline is the influence of larger or more powerful countries on their weaker or impressionable neighbors. Freedom House finds that important regional players such as China, Russia, and Venezuela are being followed by their smaller neighbors. Russia's own retreat from freedoms is emulated in Belarus and some states of central Asia, for example, while other governments not drawn to the Russian example – like those in Estonia or Georgia – are still challenged by Russia's regional weight.

China's growing economic clout with regimes well beyond its borders – particularly in Africa – is also playing a role.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0117/p04s04-wogi.html

"All your former freedoms are belong to us." - republicon fascist chickenhawks