Washington, Feb 29 (EFE).- Freedom worldwide experienced a deep and broad decline in 2023, causing almost four in 10 people in the world to live in countries not considered free, a United States thinktank reported Thursday.
In the 195 countries analyzed for Freedom House’s latest report on the state of freedom and democracy, 38 percent of the population lived in “non-free” nations, another 42 percent in “partially free” countries and the remaining 20 percent in free territories.
According to this summary, freedom worsened in 2023 for 22 percent of the world’s population, with falls in countries or regions such as Indonesia, Niger or Nagorno-Karabakh, and improved for 7 percent, among others for the inhabitants of Thailand , Nigeria and Fiji.
The population of countries that experienced a widespread deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties was three times larger than that of areas where there were improvements.
Nicaragua and Venezuela were listed for unfair elections, and Cuba for its authoritarianism. These three countries, along with Haiti, are the only ones on the American continent considered “not free,” which affects 56 countries and 11 territories and is abundant in Africa and Eurasia.
In its previous report the figures were similar, with 57 countries, 10 of which were considered “not free.”
However, from the 34 countries where there were improvements in 2022 it has increased to 21 in 2023, and from the 35 that experienced setbacks in 2022 to 52 in this latest evaluation.
The organization said the breadth and depth of the deterioration has been “enormous,” adding that efforts to hinder various elections, resorting to violence and manipulation for this purpose, contributed to this.
“Attempting to alter the outcome of an election after the vote has taken place is an especially dangerous form of electoral manipulation,” warned Freedom House at a time when, in 2024, nearly 4 billion people are called to the polls in different countries.
The think tank said armed conflicts and threats of authoritarianism have made the world less safe and less democratic. For example, the Russian offensive in Ukraine, now two years in, has further degraded basic rights in occupied areas and intensified repression in Russia itself.
Russia, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Gaza Strip are some places whose scores for the situation of their rights and freedoms have worsened the most, while Mauritania, Liberia, Nepal and Thailand show the main advances.
With the results of this latest report, world freedom has accumulated 18 consecutive years of setbacks. Democracies, as Freedom House found, are not immune to the effects of repression in their territories.
The thinktank said even before the war started in October in Gaza, much of the erosion of Israeli democratic institutions was linked to the discriminatory practices adopted to increase control over the occupied West Bank. The conflict has only accentuated the situation.
Electoral obstacles and armed conflicts, however, are not the only threats to freedom experienced: the rights of the LGBT+ community have been limited, migrants and refugees have been subjected to arbitrary deportation and physical violence, and religious freedom has been suppressed in certain countries.
Freedom House recommended supporting and funding those on the front lines of the fight against tyranny, protecting activists in exile and facilitating their work, holding autocrats accountable for their abuses, and protecting the holding of free and fair elections, among other measures. EFE
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