|
Who Is the World’s Worst
Dictator?
By David Wallechinsky, Parade
magazine, January 22, 2006
On January 22, Parade magazine – an insert in Sunday
newspapers – published its annual list of the world’s worst dictators. “A ‘dictator’ is a head of state who
exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens and who cannot be
removed from power through legal means,” Wallechinsky writes. “The worst commit
terrible human-rights abuses. This present list draws in part on reports by
global human-rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Freedom House,
Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International. While the three worst from
2005 have retained their places, two on last year’s list (Muammar al-Qaddafi of
Libya
and Pervez Musharraf
of
Pakistan
)
have slipped out of the Top 10—not because their conduct has improved but
because other dictators have gotten worse.”
Rank
|
Name
|
Country
|
Last Year’s Rank
|
1 |
Omar al-Bashir |
Sudan
|
1 |
2 |
Kim Jong-il |
North
Korea
|
2 |
3 |
Than Shwe |
Burma
|
3 |
4 |
Robert Mugabe |
Zimbabwe
|
9 |
5 |
Islam Karimov |
Uzbekistan
|
15 |
6 |
Hu Jintao |
China
|
4 |
7 |
King Abdullah |
Saudi
Arabia
|
5 |
8 |
Saparmurat Niyazov |
Turkmenistan
|
8 |
9 |
Seyed Ali Khamane’i |
Iran
|
18 |
10 |
Teodoro Obiang Nguema |
Equatorial
Guinea
|
10 |
11 |
Muammar al-Qaddafi |
Libya
|
6 |
12 |
King Mswati III |
Swaziland
|
11 |
13 |
Isayas Afewerki |
Eritrea
|
17 |
14 |
Aleksandr Lukashenko |
Belarus
|
12 |
15 |
Fidel Castro |
Cuba
|
13 |
16 |
Bashar al-Assad |
Syria
|
14 |
17 |
Pervez Musharraf |
Pakistan
|
7 |
18 |
Meles Zenawi |
Ethiopia
|
Unranked |
19 |
Boungnang Vorachith |
Laos
|
20 |
20 |
Tran Duc Luong |
Vietnam
|
19 |
|
