Council for a Community of Democracies

Freedom Stagnation and Attack on Civil Society Institutions: Freedom House Report
Freedom House Report: Freedom in the World 2007
January 19, 2007

Please Also See: Freedom Stagnation” Developing According to Newly Released Annual Freedom House Report

Freedom House’s annual report on political rights and civil liberties in the world found that the spread of freedom was at a seeming standstill with not only little progress from last year but no significant improvements in the past nine years. They also warn of a “pushback against democracy” in which authoritarian governments target not opposition “political parties or labor unions—the targets of the past—but, rather, independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), other civil society institutions, and the press.” This detrimental pushback is also coupled with three negative worldwide trends: declining freedom of expression and the press, growing weaknesses in rule of law, and continuing governmental corruption and lack of transparency.

The organization bases their three categories of “free,” “partly free,” and “not free,” on a variety of democratic characteristics, including the level of political rights and civil liberties in a state, with deductions coming from the presence of “corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic and religious strife,” and the dominance of a single political party. In 2006, there were 90 “free” countries, 58 “partly free” countries, and 45 “not free” countries. Freedom House analysts describe a “stagnation” of the spread of freedom due to the fact that the number of “free,” “partly free,” and “not free” countries remains largely unchanged over the past nine years.

The report also found that the decline of freedom of expression and the press that can be seen in some facet in almost all regions of the world: from government-sponsored oppression of the media in countries in the former USSR, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, to self-censorship in Europe over matters related to religion and immigration. In addition, the report notes the method of suppression is changing; dissidents are rarely put down through “extreme repression: military rule, mass arrests, assassinations, torture, and coups. Instead, governments often use legalistic tactics to put potential voices of opposition out of business.” This practice is also evident in the suppression of human rights and democracy NGOs in authoritarian countries, with Russia’s recent reactions towards foreign-funded organizations as an example (see http://ccd21.org/news/russia_assault_on_democracy.html).

The report positively noted the numerous successful elections in Latin America this year despite increasing levels of crime and violence; inversely, it describes the setbacks in the Asia-Pacific, most notably the coup in Thailand. In addition, Africa’s “several years of steady and, in a few cases, impressive gains in democracy,” were offset by setbacks in numerous Sub-Saharan countries. In the former USSR, civil society crackdowns came under fire and “as was the case the previous year, the only relatively bright spots among the non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union were Ukraine and Georgia.” The report also criticized the United States for some government corruption and questionable interrogation tactics used on terrorist suspects. Finally, the report characterized the spread of freedoms in the Middle East/North Africa region “glacial.”