Freedom House: Worst of the Worst 2011: The World’s Most Repressive Societies

Freedom House released a report titled Worst of the Worst 2011: The World’s Most Repressive Societies. Here is a general part of the report and a tabular presentation of the score of each countries.

At the 17^th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Freedom House released Worst of the Worst 2011: The World’s Most Repressive Societies, its annual report identifying the world’s worst human rights abusers. Citizens in these countries endure systematic and pervasive human rights violations.  The report identifies 17 countries and 3 territories where citizens live in extremely oppressive environments.

Worst of the Worst 2011: The World’s Most Repressive Societies

Freedom House has prepared this special report entitled Worst of the Worst: The World’s Most Repressive Societies, as a companion to its annual survey on the state of global political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World. The special report provides summary country reports, tables, and graphical information on the countries that receive the lowest combined ratings for political rights and civil liberties in Freedom in the World, and whose citizens endure systematic and pervasive human rights violations.

The purpose of this report is to focus the attention of those who are working to advance respect for fundamental human rights around the world, as well as those who are actively engaged in suppressing such rights. The report serves a reminder that over 1.6 billion people—more than 24 percent of the world’s population—suffer every day from the basic indignities of not being able to express their thoughts and opinions, of not having a say in who governs them and how the wealth of their land and labor is spent, and of being unable to obtain justice for crimes perpetrated against them.

In many of these countries, individuals are severely restricted in making personal choices about where to live, work, and travel. Even the freedom to practice, or not practice, a particular religious faith is often limited or becomes a cause for harassment, imprisonment, or loss of life. Hundreds of thousands of human beings in these countries languish every day in prisons or labor camps—generally in subhuman conditions and subject to physical or mental abuse—purely for their political or religious beliefs. This report seeks to highlight their plight and serves as a call to the world’s governments, policymakers, human rights organizations, and democracy advocates to speak out and use whatever resources they can bring to bear to improve respect for the most basic human rights in these countries. In particular, the report is designed to direct the attention of the UN Human Rights Council to states and territories that deserve investigation and condemnation for their widespread violations.

Worst of the Worst

Included in this year’s report are nine countries designated as the Worst of the Worst: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Also included is one territory, Tibet, whose inhabitants suffer similarly intense repression. All 10 received Freedom in the World’s lowest ratings: 7 for political rights and 7 for civil liberties (based on a 1 to 7 scale, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free). Within these entities, state control over daily life is pervasive, independent organizations and political opposition are banned or suppressed, and fear of retribution for independent thought and action is ubiquitous.

On the Threshold

The report includes eight additional countries whose ratings fall just short of the bottom of Freedom House’s ratings scale: Belarus, Chad, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Laos, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Two territories, South Ossetia and Western Sahara, also fall into this group. All 10—which received ratings of 7 for political rights and 6 for civil liberties—offer very limited scope for private discussion, while severely suppressing opposition political activity, impeding independent organizing, and censoring or punishing criticism of the state.

Change in the Most Repressive Societies

Only one country, North Korea, has been at the bottom of the ratings scale every year since the Freedom in the World survey began nearly 40 years ago, and only Somalia has been either at the bottom or one step above every year. However, three-fourths of the countries included in this year’s special report have spent over 25 years in at least one of those two positions, whether consecutively or non-consecutively, illustrating the deep entrenchment of the antidemocratic power structures in these countries and the difficulty of influencing them in any meaningful way.

Yet change is not impossible. In the 2011 edition of Freedom in the World, which covers events in 2010, Guinea pulled back from its Worst of the Worst threshold position and received a freedom status improvement from Not Free to Partly Free due to a transition from military to civilian rule, credible presidential election held in November 2010, and heightened observance of freedoms of expression and association. Likewise, in 2006, Haiti rose from the Worst of the Worst threshold and attained a Partly Free status following presidential, municipal, and parliamentary elections that were deemed to be the fairest in Haitian history. Less significant gains also occurred in Zimbabwe, though human rights violations there remain severe and the country continues to be designated Not Free.

On the negative side, Côte d’Ivoire returned to the Worst of the Worst threshold this year after a four-year absence due to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to step down or recognize the November 2010 electoral victory of opposition presidential candidate Alassane Ouatarra, as well as political violence that stemmed from the postelection standoff, including state security forces’ targeting of ethnic minority groups that supported Ouatarra. It remains to be seen whether the arrest of Gbagbo and the defeat of his forces with the help of French and UN troops in April 2011 will restore the rule of law and improve the observance of human rights in the country.

While Freedom in the World 2011 assesses developments during 2010, there have been a number of disturbing events in 2011 that have resulted in a rapid deterioration in human rights conditions in several Worst of the Worst countries. Violent crackdowns on antigovernment protesters by the regimes in both Libya and Syria since February 2011 have resulted in hundreds of deaths and an even more dangerous environment for journalists attempting to cover the crises. In China, the arbitrary detention of activists has intensified in 2011, as has harassment and intimidation of human rights lawyers, among others. In addition, a violent postelection crackdown and arbitrary arrests in Belarus, a country that has ranked among the Worst of the Worst since 2004, has contributed to the downward spiral of human rights in an already repressive regime.

Long-Term Global Trends

The last five years have featured an overall decline in global respect for the values of liberal democracy: multiparty elections, the rule of law, freedom of association, freedom of speech, the rights of minorities, and other fundamental, universal human rights. The consecutive annual declines represent the longest period of erosion in political rights and civil liberties in the nearly 40-year history of Freedom in the World. New threats have emerged in nearly every region of the world, including heightened attacks on human rights defenders and civil society, increased limits on press freedom and attacks on journalists, and significant restrictions on freedom of expression and association. The countries identified in this report represent the worst-case scenario stemming from these threats. If the negative global trend continues, the number of people living in similarly dire conditions will only grow.

Despite the recent setbacks, however, the world in 2011 is still significantly freer than it was 30 years ago. Dozens of states have replaced right- or left-wing dictatorships and authoritarian regimes with democratically elected governments that largely respect the rule of law and basic civil liberties. Freedom in the World 2011 finds that of 194 countries, 87 (45 percent) are Free and can be said to respect a broad array of basic human rights and political freedoms. An additional 60 (31 percent) are Partly Free, with some abridgments of basic rights and weak enforcement of the rule of law, and 47 countries (24 percent) are Not Free, denying their citizens most basic political and civil rights. In 1980, by contrast, only 31 percent of the world’s countries were Free, while 31 percent were Partly Fee, and 37 percent were Not Free. In all, some three billion people—43 percent of the world’s population—currently live in Free states.

Role of the United Nations

The expansion of democratic governance over the last several decades has important implications for the United Nations and other international organizations. Today, states that respect basic freedoms and the rule of law have greater potential than ever to positively influence global and regional institutions. But they can only achieve that potential by working cooperatively and cohesively on issues of democracy and human rights.

Nowhere is the need for international democratic cooperation more essential than at the UN Human Rights Council. The failure of the council’s predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, to effectively address the world’s most pressing human rights problems was at the heart of the decision to replace it with the current institution in 2006. Yet the first four years of the council’s existence featured few tangible improvements over the defunct commission, despite a clear majority of largely rights-respecting countries among the council’s membership.

Fortunately, a number of positive developments at the council in the past year have revealed the body’s ability to promote and protect human rights when democratic member states demonstrate the will to elevate such priorities over regional, economic, and political concerns. The establishment of a new thematic special procedures mandate on freedom of association and a country mandate on Iran, as well as the convening of special sessions and the passage of strong resolutions on Libya and Syria, sent a strong message to the world’s worst human rights abusers, warning them that their actions will not be tolerated by the international community. It is our sincere desire that these hard-won accomplishments lead to additional progress at the council, and we offer this report in the hope that it will assist the democratic world in pressing the case for freedom at the United Nations and in other forums.

Paula Schriefer
Director of Advocacy,
Freedom House May 2011

Worst of the Worst 2011:
The World’s Most Repressive Societies

Independent Countries

Related and Disputed Territories