DUSHANBE, January 29, 2015, Asia-Plus — The Freedom in the World 2015 Report released by Freedom House ranked Tajikistan with 6 scores for political rights (PR) and 6 scores for civil liberties (CL) among
Not Free
countries again.
Freedom in the World 2015 examines the state of freedom in 194 countries and 14 strategic territories. The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2008 and assigns each country a freedom status — either
Free
,
Partly Free
or
Not Free
based on a scoring of performance in key freedoms.
Each country score is based on two numerical ratings—from 1 to 7—for political rights and civil liberties, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free.
Of the 195 countries assessed, 89 (46 percent) were rated
Free
, 55 (28 percent)
Partly Free
, and 51 (26 percent)
Not Free
.
Of the CIS member nations, Kazakhstan and Russia also rank in the
Not Free
category, while Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan rank in the Partly Free category.
Of the 51 countries and territories designated as
Not Free
, 12 have been given the worst-possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are listed among the
Worst of the Worst
countries together with the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria. The Worst of the Worst territories are Tibet and Western Sahara.
The report, in particular, notes that more aggressive tactics by authoritarian regimes and an upsurge in terrorist attacks contributed to a disturbing decline in global freedom in 2014. The report finds an overall decline in freedom for the ninth consecutive year. Nearly twice as many countries suffered declines as registered gains—61 to 33—and the number of countries with improvements hit its lowest point since the nine-year erosion began.
