I guess these things aren’t as exciting anymore
And before I hear from the two-headed hydra of horseshoe theory on how Freedom House is a horribly biased rightist/leftist/imperialist/etc organization, shush, they can be mistaken but the evidence for current bias is pretty weak,
LinkI’ll just hit the changes big enough to move points on the classic 1-7 scale:
Belize: Civil Liberties from 2 to 1, this is great news. Don’t know why yet.
Bhutan: Political Rights from 3 to 2, this is good news. Don’t know why yet.
Brazil: Civil Liberties from 2 to 3, this is not good news. Bolonosaro in general, I suspect.
Chile: Civil Liberties from 2 to 1, excellent news! Likely the new constitution.
Comoros: Political Rights from 4 to 5, bad news. Likely further authoritarianism from the autocrat who seized power a few years back.
Cote d’Ivoire: Political Rights from 4 to 5, bad news. Apparently from the President winning an illegal third term in a rigged election.
Georgia: Political Rights from 3 to 4, not good, we have a thread on this explaining things.
Honduras: Civil Liberties from 4 to 5, bad news, not surprised but not sure what in particular was behind this.
India: Civil Liberties from 3 to 4, and a decline from Free to Partly Free. All BJP stuff, and a huge blow to world freedom.
Jordan: Political Rights from 5 to 6, and a decline from Partly Free to Not Free. Regime authoritarianism.
Kosovo: Political Rights from 3 to 4, bad of course and apparently related to electoral and legal shenanigans.
Kyrgyzstan: Political Rights from 5 to 7, Civil Liberties from 4 to 5, Partly Free to Not Free. In a development I missed, the last light in Central Asia (Mongolia is technically East Asia, shush) was extinguished as first there were fraudulent elections followed by a crime boss taking over the protests and overthrowing the government, installing himself as President and busily rewriting the constitution to be like its neighbors. Sh!t.
Lithuania: Civil Liberties from 1 to 2. Not the right direction. Not certain why but I suspect there’s an answer on the Forum.
Madagascar: Civil Liberties from 3 to 4, not good. Not sure why, hope they’re not
shutting everything downsliding back into authoritarianism.
Mali: Political Rights from 5 to 6, from Partly Free to Not Free, another f****** coup. This was once such a success story.
Mexico: Civil Liberties from 3 to 4, not good. Not sure why but probably related to authoritarianism of AMLO and MORENA.
Moldova: Civil Liberties from 4 to 3, hey in the right direction! There’s a thread on this so it’s OP might know why.
Montenegro: Political Rights from 4 to 3, right direction I think, opposition won power in elections.
Northern Cyprus: Political Rights from 2 to 3, not the right direction. Turkey interfered in the Presidential Election. This is an ominous sign for the only Free Turks left.
Panama: Political Rights from 1 to 2, wrong direction, don’t know why the change.
Peru: Political Rights from 2 to 3, from Free to Partly Free. Obviously not good, there’s a thread on the political turmoil behind this.
Seychelles: Political Rights from 3 to 2, from Partly Free to Free. The opposition took power in an election for the first time ever, and this is the first Free rating for here. Congratulations!
Slovakia: Civil Liberties from 2 to 1, excellent! There’s a great thread on Slovakia go read it and maybe the OP knows what good thing happened there last year in particular.
Somaliland: Political Rights from 5 to 4, yay! I think they settled their political crisis of the previous year with minimal or no bloodshed,
again. They’re no liberal democracy, but compared to
Somalia at 7,7 how in the f*** the International Community™️ keeps refusing to recognize them and insisting they unify with Somalia and actually thinks this is a good idea is beyond me.
St. Kitts and Nevis: Political Rights from 1 to 2, not the right direction, no idea what’s behind it.
Suriname: Civil Liberties from 3 to 2, good news. Desi Bourtase out of power again.
Thailand: Political Rights from 6 to 7, Civil Liberties from 4 to 5, Partly Free to Not Free. Military crackdown on opposition. Threads on this.
Ukraine: Civil Liberties from 3 to 4, not good. Apparently things got worse this year. Excellent thread on that.
United States: Civil Liberties from 1 to 2. First time US has had a 2,2 rating ever. Trump.
Vietnam: Civil Liberties from 5 to 6. Quite bad. Don’t know the particulars but likely increased authoritarianism versus the flickers of opposition.
Zimbabwe: Political Rights from 5 to 6, Partly Free to Not Free, increased authoritarianism versus opposition.