Kyrgyzstan ranks 155th place in Press Freedom Index

The report says that generally world media don’t face worsening press freedom situation for the first time for recent 8 years. However, Freedom House says that only 33.5 percent of countries (66 out of 197) have free press. It partially constrained in 72 countries (36.5 percent) and mass media have to deal with censorship and state control in 59 countries (30 percent).

At the same time it notes a decline in press freedom in several well-established democracies. “In recent years we have seen deterioration in press freedom situation in many countries with well-established democracies,” Karin Karlekar, one of authors of the report, said. According her, “this is often consequences of changes of political course of this or another state”.

In judgment of authors of the research, the most free media are in Finland, Norway and Sweden. At the same time they note that only 14 percent of the world population lives in countries where free press doesn’t have any problems.

Experts of Freedom House moved Russia up to one point in comparison with the previous year. It takes 172nd place – together with Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe. “New Russian media have managed to achieve certain progress,” said the report. It is noted that improvement of the situation is caused, first of all, thanking to “Internet, social networks and satellite TV”, however “they don’t manage to secure these achievements”. In whole, authors of the report put Russia on list of countries where press is “constrained”.

Most CIS countries are put on the same list – Armenia (149th rank), Tajikistan (171st), Azerbaijan (172nd), Kazakhstan (175th), Belarus (193rd), Uzbekistan (195th) and Turkmenistan (196th). Democratic People's Republic of Korea predictably takes the last place.

Freedom House was established in 1941. It is financed by the U.S. Government and a number of charitable funds. Freedom House publishes annually reports on press freedom since 1980. Basing on data from free sources they study freedom of speech in the press, on TV, radio and Internet in more that 190 world countries.