Global freedom has been in decline for 18 consecutive years. According to the report Released Thursday from the US Nonprofit Freedom House.
“Global freedom declined for the 18th consecutive year in 2023. The scope and depth of the deterioration was wide-ranging,” Freedom House said in its report. “Political rights and civil liberties declined in 52 countries, but improved in only 21 countries. Fraudulent elections and armed conflict contributed to the decline, endangering freedoms and severely affecting people’s lives. caused physical suffering.”
In a press release about the report, Freedom House President Michael J. Abramowitz said global freedom “took a major step back in 2023.”
“In 2024, the world will once again face major challenges. Billions of people will turn out to vote, and multiple armed conflicts, including in the Sahel, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and the Middle East, will violate people’s fundamental rights. Because it continues,” Abramowitz continued. . “If democracies do not respond to these challenges, many more of the world’s population will be deprived of fundamental freedoms in the coming years, ultimately impacting peace, prosperity, security and freedom for all.” It will be.”
The report said a “deterioration” in global freedoms was affecting one-fifth of the world’s population. It also said that “the decline in rights was caused by attacks on pluralism (the peaceful coexistence of people with different political ideas, religions and ethnic identities) that negatively affected elections and sowed the seeds of violence.” .
“These escalating attacks on core features of democracy reinforce the urgent need to support organizations and individuals, including human rights defenders and journalists, who are on the front lines of the struggle for freedom around the world.” The book continued.
The report comes as democracy becomes a focus of the 2024 US presidential election. In its first ad of 2024, President Biden’s re-election campaign focused on the idea of preserving democracy.
The ad, narrated by the president, claims that former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, has worked to “erode American democracy and condone and even encourage political violence.”
“I have made preserving America’s democracy an essential task of my presidency,” Biden said in the ad. “Something dangerous is happening in America right now. There is an extremist movement that does not share the fundamental beliefs of our democracy.”
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