DUSHANBE, January 27, 2016, Asia-Plus —
The Freedom in the World 2016 Report
released by Freedom House ranked Tajikistan with 7 scores for political rights (PR) and 6 scores for civil liberties (CL) among Not Free countries again.
Freedom in the World 2016
evaluates the state of freedom in 195 countries and 15 territories during calendar year 2015.
Each country and territory is assigned between 0 and 4 points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100. These scores are used to determine two numerical ratings, for political rights and civil liberties, with a rating of 1 representing the most free conditions and 7 the least free. A country or territory’s political rights and civil liberties ratings then determine whether it has an overall status of Free, Partly Free, or Not Free.
The methodology, which is derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographic location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development. Freedom in the World assesses the real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals, rather than governments or government performance per se. Political rights and civil liberties can be affected by both state and nonstate actors, including insurgents and other armed groups.
Of the 195 countries assessed, 86 (47 percent) were rated Free, 55 (28 percent) Partly Free, and 50 (26 percent) Not Free.
Freedom House notes that Tajikistan received a downward trend arrow due to the government’s mounting persecution of the opposition before and after the 2015 parliamentary elections, including the arrest of opposition leaders and a ban on the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, which violated the guarantees of political pluralism established in the peace agreement that ended the country’s civil war in 1997.
The government reportedly ensured that the opposition Islamic Revival Party lost all of its seats in legislative elections. The authorities then intensified their assault on the party over the subsequent months, revoking its registration, detaining its leaders, and effectively incapacitating what had been Central Asia’s only legal Islamist political grouping.
Of the 50 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 these countries together with the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria.
