september 15, 2006
Most Repressive Countries Ranked -- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan Top the List
The U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Freedom House has issued its annual compilation of the world’s most dictatorial nations. The Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan rank among the top offenders on the NGO’s so-called “Worst of the Worst” list, as does the Russian republic of Chechnya.
The list, which covers the period from December 1, 2004, to November 30, 2005, pinpoints eight countries as having the worst human rights records over the past year. They are: Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
It also calls attention to two territories, Chechnya and Tibet, where civilians are subject to what Freedom House calls intense repression.
The report rates the political and civil freedoms of 192 countries, assigning labels of “free,” “partly free,” and “not free.” This year, 46 percent of the countries were ranked as “free”; an additional 30 percent were “partly free.”
According to the director of Freedom House Europe, Kristie Evenson, the trend during the past decade has been an expansion, rather than reduction, of freedoms.
But this is not true everywhere. Evenson says the general tendency in Central Asia appears to be regression away from democratic development.
Freedom House says its “Worst of the Worst” list is especially critical in a year when the United Nations’ newly formed Human Rights Council begins work.
The organization hopes the list will be used by national governments and the United Nations to address the world’s most pressing human rights abuses.
Read the full Freedom House report here
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