How Free are NewEurasia Countries?
Freedom House just released their Freedom in the World 2006 report, along with an article summarizing and evaluating the results for the entire world. While the picture is optimistic for the world as a whole, NewEurasia’s countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) fared rather poorly.
In Uzbekistan, state violence against demonstrators, the repression of civil society, and an overall decline in human rights conditions during the past year was sufficiently pronounced to warrant a decline in the country’s Freedom in the World score to the lowest possible rating. Only eight countries worldwide earned a similar status as the worst of the worst, and two, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, are in Central Asia.
Depressingly, a fourth of the world’s most repressed countries (or the world’s worst “hell holes,� in one editorial from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal) are located in Central Asia, joining Cuba, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Burma.
Among the countries covered by NewEurasia, there are no countries considered to be free, 42% considered partly free (Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan), and 58% not free. Of those not free, two are among the eight most repressed countries in the world, meaning that about 42% of the total population of Central Asia and the Caucuses live under the harshest, most oppressive, and least free regimes in the world.
For comparison, in the world as a whole, 46% of all countries are deemed free, 30% partly free, and 24% not free. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 23% are free, 48% partly free, and 29% not free. In the Middle East and North Africa, 6% are considered free, 33% partly free, and 61% not free.
The picture is not completely dark, however. Kyrgyzstan showed improvement both in political rights, and civil liberties, pushing it into the “partly free� category. Georgia strengthened its scorecard in regard to civil liberties, and remains a head and shoulders above the rest of the region in overall score. The next best scores are Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, both of whom received a ranking of 5 in political rights, and 4 in civil liberties (with 1 being the best, and 7 the worst). Georgia was rated 3 in both criteria.
Perhaps Kazakhstan’s economic success and Tajikistan’s plan for development will bring improvements in the coming years.
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