Freedom in the world: Kosovo, among countries with greater improvements

While remaining in the category of partially free countries, Kosovo is valued at plus 4 points for improving political rights and civil liberties.

The report released on March 9th notes that the biggest improvements during 2022 were made in Colombia, which is estimated by +6 points.

Following it is Slovenia with +5 points, Kosovo, Kenya and San Marino will be ranked with +4 points.

In the category of partially free countries are other Western Balkan countries: Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Northern Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Freedom House praised 210 countries and territories worldwide, out of which 84 countries are free, as well as a territory, 54 countries and four territories are partially free and 57 countries and 10 territories are unfree.

Burkina Faso, with two coups in 2022, suffered the biggest drop of points. It lost 23 points on the 100-point scale of the report, followed by Ukraine, which lost 11 points as a result of the Russian invasion.

Tunisia, Nicaragua, Guinea, El Salvador, Hungary, and Russia also suffered declines.
“Hendenk among the number of countries that registered overall improvements in political rights and civil liberties and those who registered the overall decline in 2022 was the closest it has ever been in the last 17 years”, the report said.

Improvements made 34 countries as the decline marked 35.

According to the report, improvements, among other things, were prompted by the most competitive elections, as well as the removal of restrictions related to the pandemic of the Coronavirus and the disproportionately affecting freedom of collection and freedom of movement.

The most serious obstacles to freedom and democracy, according to the report, were the result of wars, coups and attacks on democratic institutions by nonliberal rulers.

Russia's authoritarian “regime began the total invasion of Ukraine, in an effort to stave off its democratic progress, barely achieved”, says the report.
According to him, “cries and other efforts to undermine representative governments destabilise Burkina Fason, Tunisia, Peru and Brazil”.

Freedom House recalls that Afghanistan's Taliban regime prevented girls from education amid a continuing economic and humanitarian crisis.

“Governments and occupational powers used violence and other tools to destroy cultures and change the ethnic composition of populations in 21 countries and territories, including Ukraine, Ethiopia and Myanmar”, the New York organisation's report notes.

It says that the year 2022 brought much the same about media freedom, which was put under pressure in at least 157 countries and territories.

Freedom of personal expression, according to the report, also suffered due to privacy, harassment and intimidation.

However, the world is evidently cheaper today than it was 50 years ago, notes Freedom House.

In 1973, the organization recalls, 44 of the 148 countries were rated as free. Today, it says, 84 out of 195 countries have that status, plus a territory.

The ongoing antipression procedures in Iran, Cuba, China and other authoritarian countries suggest that people's desire for freedom is bold and that no obstacle should be considered permanent”, the report says.

Of the 57 countries named unfree, at the bottom of the list are: Southern Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, and North Korea.