World is least ‘free’ in last 25 years: Report

A new report by Freedom House has found that world democracy and freedom is indeed in peril sending ominous signals for the near future, writes senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: In the last 25 years, the world is at its worst as far as freedom is concerned, the ‘Freedom in the World 2021’ report brought out by the iconic Freedom House on Wednesday has concluded.

The report—brought out by the 80-year-old United States-based think tank on democracy, political freedom, and human rights—categorises 195 countries of the world into three groups—‘Free’, ‘Partly Free’ and ‘Not Free’.

In 2020, the number of ‘Free’ countries had declined from 89 in 2005 to 82 while the ‘Partly Free’ countries moved up from 58 to 59. But the ‘Not Free’ countries had peaked to 54 in 2020 from 45 in 2005, its highest level yet, begging the question as to whether the international balance was shifting.

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Year 2020 also marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.

Sadly, India contributed significantly to the decline in parameters for freedom as it slid from ‘Free’ to the ‘Partly Free’ grouping.

Says the report: “With India’s decline to Partly Free, less than 20 percent of the world’s population now lives in a Free country, the smallest proportion since 1995. As repression intensifies in already unfree environments, greater damage is done to their institutions and societies, making it increasingly difficult to fulfill public demands for freedom and prosperity under any future government.”

In a list of 25 countries where the most decline in freedom was noticed, the US slid by a huge 11 points in the last 10 years. The US decline was due to political corruption and issues of conflicts of interest, lack of transparency in government, punitive immigration and asylum policies.

The other countries where a resurgent opposition was repressed into oppressive silence were Venezuela, Belarus, Algeria, and Guinea. Other notable nations were China, Ethiopia, and Azerbaijan.

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The report adds: “The enemies of freedom have pushed the false narrative that democracy is in decline because it is incapable of addressing people’s needs. In fact, democracy is in decline because its most prominent exemplars are not doing enough to protect it.”

To be fair, what worsened already sliding parameters of freedom was the scourge of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

“Since it spread around the world in early 2020, COVID-19 has exacerbated the global decline in freedom. The outbreak exposed weaknesses across all the pillars of democracy, from elections and the rule of law to egregiously disproportionate restrictions on freedoms of assembly and movement.”

“Ultimately, the changes precipitated by the pandemic left many societies—with varied regime types, income levels, and demographics—in worse political condition; with more pronounced racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities; and vulnerable to long-term effects,” says the report.

Finding themselves inadequate in dealing with COVID 19, many governments the world over like Algeria, Hungary, El Salvador and Philippines took recourse to suppressing or distorting information even as they imposed lockdown rules with brutal impunity or even used the pandemic to consolidate power and suppress dissent.

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