Article today 2/18

Survey: Global Freedom Drops for 11th Year as Populism, Autocracy Rise

U.S. human rights group Freedom House says global freedoms weakened in 2016 for an 11th consecutive year, a decline it blamed on growing populism and nationalism in democratic nations and greater authoritarianism in others.

The bleak assessment came in the group’s annual global freedom survey published Monday with the title, “Populists and Autocrats: The Dual Threat to Global Democracy.”

Of the 195 countries assessed in the Freedom House report, 45 percent were rated “free,” 30 percent were rated “partly free” and 25 percent were rated “not free.” It said 67 countries suffered declines in political rights and civil liberties in 2016, predominantly in established democracies such as Brazil, France, Germany and the United States. The report said 36 nations saw improvements in freedom, leaving the gainers outnumbered by nations with declining freedom for the 11th straight year.

 There are 36 nations improving in freedom, however, there are more nations are declining freedom for the 11th straight year.

Freedom House said major democracies were “mired in anxiety and indecision” in 2016, after a series of destabilizing events. It said one such event was the U.S. presidential victory of Donald Trump, whom it called a “mercurial figure with unconventional views on foreign policy and other matters” — views it said “raised questions” about his country’s future role in the world.

“What the U.S. chooses to do in its foreign policy under the new administration is an open question,” Freedom House spokeswoman Sarah Repucci said. “But we’ve seen a lot of warning signs that it may not be engaging to the extent that all previous U.S. administrations in recent years have done.”

She just said in a soft way that the new administration may not attend the extent like previous administrations have done.

Repucci said Russia, which Freedom House rates as “not free,” has shown a willingness to fill any gap left by U.S. disengagement from the world, particularly in the Middle East.

Russia is showing willingness to fill any gap particularly in the Middle East which is left by the US.

The report said Trump’s election win shows that the United States is “not immune to the kind of populist appeals that have resonated across the Atlantic in recent years.” It said his campaign “featured a series of disturbing events, stemming mainly from Trump’s own remarks and the actions of his supporters, and punctuated by Trump’s insistence, without evidence and even after he won, that the election results were marred by massive fraud.”

The US is becoming more appealed by populist which has resonated across Western Europe in recent years.
The US can not resist the populist way of thinking coming from Western Europe, where it is already wildly spread

But Freedom House also noted positive aspects of Trump’s rise to power. It said his success as an “outsider candidate who challenged the mainstream forces of both major parties demonstrated the continued openness and dynamism of the American system.”

Freedom House said civil-war-plagued Syria had the “worst” score for political rights and civil liberties in 2016. Following Syria on the list of worst-scoring nations were Eritrea, North Korea, Uzbekistan, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, Somalia, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Saudi Arabia.

The only country in the report with a positive trend toward being freer was Colombia, whose government secured a peace deal with FARC rebels last year, ending a decades-long conflict in the South American nation.

http://www.voanews.com/a/report-2016-marks-11th-consecutive-year-of-declining-global-freedom/3700442.html

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016