(Clearwisdom.net)

Despite Jiang regime claims China's freedom and democracy are in its best period, new survey results published today (December 19, 2002) by Freedom House showed that China is among the countries of Not Free.

This year represents the 30th anniversary of Freedom in the World. The 2002 survey finds that the number of countries rated Free has more than doubled from 30 years ago. The highest-ever proportion of the world's population is living in freedom today.

According to the annual survey, 89 countries are now Free, up from 43 in 1972. Their inhabitants enjoy a broad range of rights. Fifty-six countries are considered Partly Free, an increase from 38 in 1972. Political rights and civil liberties are more limited in these countries, in which corruption, dominant ruling parties, and, in some cases, ethnic or religious strife are often the norm. The survey finds that 47 countries fall into the Not Free category, down sharply from 69 in 1972. Inhabitants of these countries are denied basic political rights and civil liberties.

"While some repressive governments use the global war on terrorism to justify crackdowns on peaceful political opponents, the survey's findings suggest that overall, the world has not seen a serious erosion of human rights since September 11, 2001," said Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky.

Despite of the fact that the world is moving on the direction of more freedom and democracy, China ranks among the worst among close to 200 countries and regions. China's degree of democracy and freedom were evaluated to be 7 and 6, respectively with 7 being the worst. Other countries earned 7 include Burma, Cuba, North Korea etc. China's Tibet was names as the worst "Not Free" region. Hong Kong and Macao each got 5 and 3 in democracy and 6 and 4 in freedom, respectively and thus earn themselves "partly free." Hong Kong's 5 and 6 grades apparently reflected its restrictive practice in Hong Kong people's freedom. Of the 2.153 billion people live in "Not Free" countries, about 1.4 billon people are in China.

The full report can be found at http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2002/web.pdf

Posting date: 12/20/2002
Original article date: 12/20/2002
Category: Open Forum

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