democracia participativa y derechos humanos / participatory democracy & human rights

The Press Freedom Index prepared every year by Reporters Without Borders is a highly respected model because of its objectivity.  The 2009 Index has just been published.  You may find a chart with the first 25 and the last 25 ranked among 175 countries below.

The United States has climbed 16 places in the rankings, from 36th to 20th, in just one year. Europe long set an example in press freedom but several European nations have fallen significantly in this year’s index. Even if the first 13 places are still held by European countries, others such as France (43rd), Slovakia (44th) and Italy (49th) continue their descent, falling 8, 37 and 5 places respectively. In so doing, they have given way to young democracies in Africa (Mali, South Africa and Ghana) and the western hemisphere (Uruguay and Trinidad and Tobago).  Journalists are still physically threatened in Italy and Spain (44th), but also in the Balkans, especially Croatia (78th), where the owner and marketing director of the weekly Nacional were killed by a bomb on 23 October 2008.

Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela are way down in this list, taking the 84th, 95th and 124th places.  Cuba is among the last 25.  And no Latin American country is among the first 25.  The highest ranking among these countries are Uruguay and Costa Rica, at the 29th and 30th places, followed by Chile at the 39th place.  In the case of Venezuela, Reporters Without Borders has just taken issue about the moves of President Chavez to curtail freedom of expression in the Internet.  They argue that "False posts cannot be used to justify arbitrary control over the Internet".

In another interesting report about the Internet, they denounce «The Enemies of the Intenet in 2010» in reference to how vulnerable Web users, dissidents and bloggers are when they must face totalitarian governments.

Back to the Press Freedom Index, we may also read that Iranian journalists have suffered more than ever this year in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran. The president’s disputed reelection plunged the country into a major crisis and fostered regime paranoia about journalists and bloggers.  Automatic prior censorship, state surveillance of journalists, mistreatment, journalists forced to flee the country, illegal arrests and imprisonment – such is the state of press freedom this year in Iran, among the last five in ranking.

Please, find additional information HERE