Asia-Pacific's press freedom gets mixed rating by Freedom House

"This region is home to one of the world's worst-rated countries, North Korea, and the world's largest Not Free setting, China," said the annual report on global press freedom by the US-based independent watchdog organisation, made available in Asia on Thursday.

 

While the Asia-Pacific region's overall rating improved slightly in 2012, raised by the opening of the media environment in countries such as Myanmar and Afghanistan, "Thailand moved back into the Not Free category, and deterioration was noted in Cambodia, Hong Kong, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka."  The 2012 Freedom House report found that the per centage of the world's population living in societies with a fully free press has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade.

 

"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 Kramer, president of Freedom House.

 

"The overall decline is also a disturbing indicator of the state of democracy globally and underlines the critical need for vigilance in promoting and protecting independent journalism," he said.

 

The world's eight worst-rated countries were Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

 

The Middle East and North Africa region's level of media freedomemained the worst in the world.

 

"While two of the Arab Spring countries, Libya and Tunisia, largely retained their significant gains from the previous year, Egypt moved back into the Not Free category," the report said.

 

"On the Arabian Peninsula, deterioration was noted in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Israel, an outlier in the region due to its traditionally free and diverse press, nevertheless experienced several challenges during 2012, resulting in a status downgrade to Partly Free."//DPA