The worldwide march toward freedom suffered a serious setback in 1993, with a half-billion more people living in repressive societies, a private analysis said Thursday.
Eighteen countries, including Egypt and Nigeria, were added since last year to the Freedom House list of the "not free." They included countries in Africa, the Mideast, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia."The period of rapid democratic expansion appears to have ended," declared Bette Bao Lord, chairwoman of the New York-based human rights organization at a news conference releasing results of the annual survey.
"This trend towards freedom, human dignity, the idea that democracy works . . . has been threatening to many people in power, to established tribal groups and religions," said Max Kampelman, former arms negotiator and former Freedom House board chairman.
The survey found repression even in the world's freest societies, noting civil rights and other problems in the United States and less freedom in Italy and Japan due primarily to "mounting corruption that erodes political structures."
Ethnic violence, religious tension, poor economic conditions, inexperience with democracy and political repression were blamed for the first retreat from freedom in five years. It also was the biggest decline since 1972 when Freedom House began monitoring political rights and civil liberties worldwide with its Survey of Freedom in the World.
The report is based on the observations of Freedom House regional experts, consultants and human rights specialists around the world.The report also blamed lack of support from the West as many industrial democracies turn inward.
It noted an emerging web of totalitarian states, including China and Iran, which are trading arms and "exerting greater influence in the global vacuum" left by the end of the Cold War.
The report said the number of people living in "not free" societies rose by 531 million, while the number living in free countries fell by 300 million. Many countries were listed as "partly free." The percentage of free people worldwide stood at 19 percent, the lowest in 17 years.
Freedom House uses checklists for political and civil liberties, grading each country on two dozen questions, using a scale of 1 to 7 on each question, with 7 being the least free.
A sample question: "Does the country have the right of self-determination, and are its citizens free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies or any other powerful group?"
In all, 55 countries were rated "not free," 63 "partly free" and 72 "free."
The list of lowest-scoring countries among the "not free" grew from 12 to 20. Freedom House resident scholar Joseph E. Ryan said competition for the worst score was heavy, with Somalia, Sudan and North Korea probably at the very bottom.
Despite the decline in freedom worldwide, the number of democracies continued to climb, from 99 at the end of 1992 to 107 today, the report said, noting that democratic government did not necessarily signal freedom for citizens.
Egypt last year had been rated at 5.5, but a perceived slip in political rights gave it an overall 6 rating this year.
Nigeria slipped from 4.5 to a 6, with declines in both civil liberties and political rights.
In addition to Egypt and Nigeria, countries added to the "not free" list were Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Oman, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro.)
This year, the report said, rating changes tended to show freedom's erosion, with 42 countries recording declines and only 19 recording gains.
"The world appears on the road to a new post Cold War bipolarity, with a community of free nations on the one hand and an increasingly repressive group of not-free nations on the other."