Thread: Thailand's democracy rating slips

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/loca...y-rating-slips

Thailand's democracy rating slips

• Published: 14/01/2011 at 04:17 AM
• Online news: Local News

Thailand is among 25 countries which showed significant declines in democracy last year with little serious resistance from the democratic world, the watchdog group Freedom House says.

It was the fifth consecutive year the Freedom House has reported a decline in political rights and civil liberties worldwide.

"Our adversaries are not just engaging in widespread repression, they are doing so with unprecedented aggressiveness and self-confidence," said David J Kramer, executive director of the group.

"And the democratic community is not rising to the challenge."


Yellow designates "partly free"

The report’s survey of 194 countries and 14 territories around the world found that China, Egypt, Iran, Russia and Venezuela continued to increase repressive measures with little significant resistance from democracies. The number of electoral democracies dropped to 115, the lowest level since 1995, after reaching a high of 123 in 2005.

Of the 47 countries ranked not free, nine countries and one territory received the survey’s lowest possible rating for both political rights and civil liberties: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Eleven countries were credited with making gains last year, but 25 others were cited as showing significant declines.

The 25 countries listed as declining in their levels of freedom were Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Kuwait, Latvia, Madagascar, Mexico, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.

The Middle East and North Africa remained the regions with the lowest level of freedom while Ukraine and Mexico fell from the "free" to the "partly free" category, the report said.

"Authoritarian regimes will have a much freer hand to silence their domestic critics if there is no resistance from the outside world," said Arch Puddington, director of research at Freedom House.