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Civil and democratic rights are in retreat, says an organisation with strong, though not uncontested, views on the matter



OVER the past half century, it often seemed that the advance of democracy and basic freedoms—the right to speak and write without fear of persecution, to demand political change, and so on—was ineluctable. First the Europeans let their colonies go. Then the Soviet empire fell, and with it the communist monopoly on power in eastern Europe. And apartheid ended in South Africa.

Recently, though, freedom's progress may have come to a halt, or even gone into reverse. That, at least, is the conclusion of Freedom House, an august American lobby group whose observations on the state of liberty are a keenly watched indicator. Its report for 2007 speaks of a “profoundly disturbing deterioration” in the global picture, with reversals seen in 38 countries—nearly four times as many as are showing any sign of improvement.

Using the think-tank's long-established division of the world into “free”, “partly free” and “not free” countries, the planet is still a better place than it was a quarter-century ago. In other words, there are still net gains from the fall of communism, at least in central Europe, and the decline of militarism in Latin America. But the short-term trends seem worrying. Last year was the second in a row when liberty, as defined by Freedom House, inched back.

An especially disturbing sign, says the organisation, is the number of countries in all regions of the world where a previously hopeful trend has gone into reverse. They include Bangladesh (where the armed forces took over last year), Sri Lanka (whose civil war flared up) and the Philippines. Other backsliders included Nigeria and Kenya, accounting for more than one sub-Saharan African in four between them, plus the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. In both Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, former Soviet republics whose “colour revolutions” were warmly encouraged by Freedom House, there was regression. Only two countries, Thailand and Togo, made a clear leap forward last year, going from “not free” to “partly free”.

No country joined the top “free” group, and a total of 43 countries, representing 36% of the world's population, now languish in the “not free” group. None of the eight “worst of the worst”—Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—was credited with any sign of improvement.

Of course, not all the targets of Freedom House's ire will feel embarrassed by their low scores. For example, Cuba's envoys to the United Nations have angrily denounced the organisation as a blatant instrument of “interventionist activities” by dark forces in Washington. And in slightly more respectable quarters (on America's academic left, for example) the analysts at Freedom House have been criticised for hewing too close to their home country's foreign policy.

So where exactly does Freedom House come from? It was founded in 1941 by Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt, as a counter to Nazism. During the cold war it “fought the good fight” against Soviet-backed tyrannies but also had harsh words for dictators on America's side of the stand-off. At least in American terms, its bosses and trustees have covered a broadish range of Republicans and Democrats. James Woolsey, a former CIA director, once served as its chairman. Past trustees have included Donald Rumsfeld, an ex-defence secretary, and Paul Wolfowitz, another Republican luminary who held high office at the Pentagon. But board members have also included Lane Kirkland, a Democrat who led America's labour movement for 16 years.



Freedom House not only watches the state of liberty, it also calls itself a “catalyst” for the peaceful advancement of civil and democratic rights through “analysis, advocacy and action”. But it has firm ideas about which country is best placed to promote these ideals: it has formally stated that whatever their differences, all trustees are agreed that “American leadership in international affairs is essential to the cause of human rights and freedom.” When America attacked Iraq in 2003, Freedom House wished the campaign well.

Nor does the organisation conceal its financial ties to the American government, which supplies about 80% of its income. But it strongly denies that it acts as an arm of the government, or that it holds back from criticising America and its friends when that is warranted. And it would be hard to argue that diplomatic friendship with the United States has ever guaranteed a country a free pass from the think-tank. Israel, a close American friend, used to get relatively poor grades—a 2 for political rights and a 3 for civil liberties on a descending scale of 1 to 7. In recent years, Israel has improved its scores, but only in 2005 did its civil-liberty rating rise to 2.

Japan, another American ally, has also struggled to keep up its grades at Freedom House. Having started with a 2 for political rights and a 1 for civil liberties, it got top marks throughout the 1980s, only to slip back to a grade 2 in both categories in the early 1990s. Since 1995, it has been getting a grade 1 for political rights, but still only a 2 for civil liberties. Meanwhile some of America's strategic allies, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, have seen virtually no rise in their ratings since the September 2001 terrorist attacks despite their role as partners in the “war on terror”. All have continued to languish at or near the bottom of the pile.

Insiders say that in years past, there was some internal debate at Freedom House over whether or not economic welfare, which affects the range of choices people can make, should be included in the calculus of liberty. But the decision has been to keep economic factors out. This helps to explain why China, in the midst of the horrors of its Cultural Revolution when the surveys began, has hardly managed to improve on its early, rock-bottom ratings. Its “civil liberties” are still assessed at a dismal 6.

Russia, too, has been rated on the basis of its worsening human and political rights with no account taken of rising living standards. It was awarded a relatively good 3 for both political rights and civil liberties in 1991, bringing it within a whisker of membership of the “free” group, but is now locked again in the “not free” camp.

How much freer do people feel when they have a few roubles or yuan in their pocket (and access to other goodies like computers and compact discs)? That is an endlessly debatable question. By contrast the sort of liberties and non-liberties measured by Freedom House (multi-party elections, due process and so on) are relatively tangible and easy to assess. That alone may be quite a good argument for having at least one index whose stated purpose is to assess formal freedoms—to vote, speak, assemble and so on. That does not imply that other factors, such as prosperity, have no bearing on how free people feel.

In any event, critics of Freedom House will soon have fresh material which they can test for pro-American bias: a special report on civil liberties in the United States is to be published, probably in March.

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