2018 Annual Freedom in the World Report

Russia and China have been named in a report as being among the worst countries in the world for taking away people's freedoms

 

Some 88 countries, including Britain and America, were seen as being 'free' while 49 - including the likes of Thailand, Egypt, and Turkey - were deemed to be 'not free'

 

Each nation is give a score out of 100 with the worst (-1/100) recorded by war torn Syria under the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad. South Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan made up the rest of the bottom five

 

The Freedom House report found that there had been dramatic declines in freedom observed in regions around the world

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Cuba were also among tightly controlled nations in this category. Russia was 27th from bottom with a score of 20. 

The number of people living under 'not free' conditions stood at nearly 2.7 billion people. But more than half of this number lives in just one country - China, which  was named 19th from bottom on the list after recording a score of 14.

At the other end of the spectrum, Scandinavian countries, Finland, Norway and Sweden topped the list of 'free' nations with scores of 100, followed in the top ten by Canada, Netherlands, Australia, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Uruguay and Denmark.

Britain was named 27th with a score of 94 - above France but below Spain and Germany. America was 53rd, just above Greece and Mongolia, but below the likes of Italy and Costa Rica.

The number of countries designated as Free stands at 88, representing more than 2.9 billion people —or 39 per cent of the global population. The number of Free countries increased by one from the previous year's report, it said.

The number of countries qualifying as Partly Free stands at 58, or 30  per cent of all countries assessed, and they were home to nearly 1.8 billion people, or 24 per cent of the world's total.   

The report said that over the period since the 12-year global slide began in 2006, 113 countries have seen a net decline, and only 62 have experienced a net improvement.