Kuwait ‘Partly Free’ In Freedom House Review. Parliamentary Crisis Affects Rating

Fuente: 
Arab Times
Fecha de publicación: 
02 Mayo 2013

KUWAIT CITY, May 1, (Agencies): Kuwait was rated ‘Partly Free’ in the Freedom in the World 2013 Report released Wednesday by the Freedom House.

Freedom House, a non-profit organization, evaluates press freedom in various countries all over the world every year, rating each country from 1 to 7 for political rights (PR) and civil liberties (CL) with 1 as the ‘most free’ and 7 the ‘least free’. 

In this year’s report, Kuwait is down to ‘5’ in political rights and it obtained the same rating in civil liberties. The organization ranks countries all over the world using a checklist of questions in both categories. For political rights, the questions are related to the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, functioning of the government, and discretionary political rights. Questions on civil liberties are about freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights. 

According to the report, Kuwait’s political rights rating declined due to a parliamentary crisis and the government’s attempts to undermine the political opposition by revising the electoral law.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, Oman lost ground due to the ongoing arrests of human rights and reform activists, and the increased suppression of free expression in online forums. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was downgraded due to stepped-up arrests of activists, lawyers, and judges calling for political reform; the passage of a highly restrictive internet law that punishes online activism and free expression, and the dismissal and deportation of academics who were critical of government policies. For a second year, Bahrain systematically persecuted opposition activists, handing out extremely lengthy prison sentences in some instances. In addition to continuing its domestic repression, Saudi Arabia has sent security forces to help quell protests in Bahrain and provided assistance to other governments and parties in the region to counter the influence of democratic countries.

Last year’s gains in press freedom in the Middle East and North Africa remained precarious, with Tunisia and Libya mainly holding onto their Arab Spring gains while Egypt significantly backslid, Freedom House said.

“Two years after the uprisings in the Middle East, we continue to see heightened efforts by authoritarian governments around the world to put a stranglehold on open political dialogue, both online and offline,” said David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House.

The Freedom House report came out two days before the observance of UN-declared World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Freedom House said that in Syria, the government continues to forcibly restrict coverage of the conflict and misreport events via state-run television stations, and journalists and bloggers operate in an environment of considerable fear and insecurity.

“However, the loss of centralized control in large swathes of the country has allowed a rise in citizen journalism, the opening of new media outlets, and a decline in self-censorship,” the report found.
China and Russia, the group said, continue to maintain a tight grip on traditional media — including detaining, jailing, or bringing legal charges against critics, and closing down or otherwise censoring outlets — even as they expanded their attempts to control content online.

Freedom House uses a variety of criteria to rank countries’ media as Free, Partly Free or Not Free, and tracks trends over time.

Of the 197 countries and territories Freedom House assessed during 2012, a total of 63 (32 percent) were rated Free, 70 (36 percent) were rated Partly Free, and 64 (32 percent) were rated Not Free.
The analysis found that less than 14 percent of the world’s inhabitants lived in countries with a Free press, while 43 percent had a Partly Free press and 43 percent lived in Not Free environments. The population figures are significantly affected by two countries — China, with a Not Free status, and India, with a Partly Free status — that together account for over a third of the world’s nearly 7 billion people.
The percentage of those enjoying Free media in 2012 declined by a half point to the lowest level since 1996, when Freedom House began incorporating population data into the findings of the survey. Meanwhile, the share living in Not Free countries jumped by 2.5 percentage points, reflecting the move by populous states such as Egypt and Thailand back into that category.

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