Yemen: Yemen escapes Worst of the Worst list of not free countries

Yemen Times
By: Nadia Al-Sakkaf and Freedom House

May 6 — Maintaining the same position as last year in the Freedom House annual survey on the state of global political rights and civil liberties, Yemen has escaped the list of 42 countries designated as “not free.”

Each year 193 countries are judged based on events from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. As last year Yemen is described as “partially free” with a rating of five for both political rights and civil liberties rates, and an average combined rating of five based on a 1 to 7 scale, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free.

“We are publishing this report to assist policymakers, human rights organizations, democracy advocates, and others who are working to advance freedom around the world. We also hope that the report will be useful to the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council,” announced the team behind the report.

Of the 51 “not free” territories and countries, 17 countries and four territories were selected as Worst of the Worst due to systematic and pervasive human rights violations. With an average combined political rights and civil liberties ratings of 6.5 or 7, these countries comprise 10 percent of the world’s nations and 24 percent of the world’s population. Six of those 17 countries are Arab: Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

None of the Arab countries were categorized as free, while only seven countries including Yemen were defined as partially free: Djibouti, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Morocco and Kuwait. The remaining 13 countries in addition to the Palestinian territories were defined as not free.

According to the report, at the beginning of 2009, of the 193 countries in the world, 89 countries -46 percent- are free and can be said to respect a broad array of basic human rights and political freedoms. An additional 62 countries -32 percent- are partly free, with some abridgments of basic rights and weak enforcement of the rule of law.

In all, some 3 billion people -46 percent of the world’s population-live in free states in which a broad array of political rights are protected.

“The fundamental violations of rights presented in this report are all the more alarming because they stand in sharp contrast to the significant expansion of human liberty over the last three decades. In that period, dozens of states have shed tyranny and embraced democratic rule and respect for basic civil liberties,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director at Freedom House.

The survey rates each country and territory on a seven-point scale for both political rights and civil liberties, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free, and then assigns each country and territory a broad category status of free (for countries whose ratings average 1.0 to 2.5), partly free (3.0 to 5.0), or not free (5.5 to 7.0).

The ratings process is based on a checklist of 10 political rights and 15 civil liberties questions. The political rights check list includes questions about the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, functioning of the government and other discretionary political rights questions. The civil liberties checklist includes questions about freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.

“The Freedom in the World ratings are not merely assessments of the conduct of governments, but are intended to reflect the reality of daily life,” reads the report. “Freedom can be affected by state actions as well as by non-state actors. Thus, terrorist movements or armed groups use violent methods which can dramatically restrict essential freedoms within a society. Conversely, the existence of non-state activists or journalists who act courageously and independently despite state restrictions can positively impact the ability of the population to exercise its freedoms.”

Consequently, Freedom House and UN Watch strongly urge United Nations members to block seven countries from obtaining seats on the Human Rights Council, including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia rated among the world’s most repressive regimes.

The non government organizations released a report in New York this week that indicates that nearly two-thirds of the 20 countries running for seats in next week’s election either have poor or questionable human rights records.

The study found seven countries not qualified: Azerbaijan, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Russia and Saudi Arabia. The governments of three of those countries—China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia—rank among the world’s most repressive regimes, suppressing nearly all fundamental political rights and civil liberties, according to Freedom House’s Worst of the Worst report. An additional six countries have questionable or mixed human rights records: Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and Senegal.

The report raised further concern that a majority of the candidates may gain seats on the influential council despite their records, because of a lack of competition from democratic states. However, each candidate must first secure an absolute majority of the General Assembly, or 97 votes, to win a seat.

“General Assembly members who care about human rights must not resign themselves to approving these noncompetitive slates,” said Paula Schriefer, Freedom House advocacy director. “We urge member states to restore credibility to the council by rejecting those nations that do not uphold basic standards for human rights.”

On May 12, the UN General Assembly is expected to elect 18 new countries to the Human Rights Council, more than a third of its total membership. Each regional group is apportioned a specific number of seats. However, in three of the five regional groups—Asia, Latin America and the Western European and Others group—the number of countries running does not exceed the number of open seats.

The General Assembly is instructed to elect council members based on their ability to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” and their ability to “fully cooperate” with the council.

As a result, UN Watch and Freedom House evaluated each of the 20 candidates based on its record of human rights protection at home and its record of human rights promotion at the UN.

The evaluation included the countries’ rankings in Freedom House and UN Watch analyses, as well as reports from Reporters San Frontières, The Economist Democracy Index and the Democracy Coalition Project.