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Burma ranked 'worst of the worst'
Irrawaddy - January 13, 2010
Arkar Moe – Freedom House, the Washington-based human rights group, says Burma is the "worst of the worst" in providing political rights and civil liberties to its citizens.
The report, released on Tuesday, which surveyed 194 countries, said that some Asian countries saw progress, while others – including Burma, China and North Korea – continued to repress the basic rights of their citizens.
The "Freedom in the World 2010" report found the longest continuous period of decline for global freedoms in the nearly 40-year history of the report, according to a press release.
Founded in 1941, Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights and publishes an annual report each year.
The survey analyzed developments that occurred in 2009 and assigned each country a freedom status – free, partly free, or not free – based on a scoring of performance on key indicators.
There were no surprises among countries designated as "Not Free:" nine countries – including Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – received the lowest possible scores, the "worst of the worst."
This year's findings reflected growing pressures on journalists and new media and restrictions on freedom of association and repression aimed at civic activists who promote political reform and respect for human rights.
"The decline is global, affects countries with military and economic power, affects countries that had previously shown signs of reform potential and is accompanied by enhanced persecution of political dissidents and independent journalists," Arch Puddington, the Freedom House director of research said in a press release. "To make matters worse, the most powerful authoritarian regimes have become more repressive, more influential in the international arena and more uncompromising."
The group also noted that analysis of data between 2005 and 2009 shows "there have been growing pressures on freedom of expression, including press freedom, as well as on civic activists engaged in promoting political reform and respect for human rights, including the rights of workers to organize."
Intensified repression against human rights defenders and civic activists around the world helped make 2009 a "rights recession," the watchdog group said.
Bo Kyi, the joint-secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, "The Burmese military junta should take note of the reports of Freedom House and other world organizations because they can provide guidance about how to solve issues."
Freedom House says more than 2.3 billion people in the world live in societies where fundamental political rights and civil liberties are not respected.
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