Democracy continues to decline globally, says Freedom House report

Democracy and pluralism are under threat around the world for the consecutive fourteenth year, a Freedom House report revealed.

The US-based non-profit organisation published the report titled "Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy" on Wednesday.

With an aggregate score of 39 out of 100, the Freedom in the World-2020 report has categorised Bangladesh's freedom status as “partly free”.

Of the 195 countries assessed, 83 were rated free, 63 partly free, and 49 not free.

“The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance,” said Sarah Repucci, vice president for research and analysis at Freedom House.

In the report, Bangladesh scored 15 out of 40 in terms of political rights and 24 out of 60 in civil liberty.

The overall scores were 47, 45 and 41 in 2017, 2018 and 2019 reports respectively.

Bangladesh’s score decreased 20 points over the last one decade.

The report said the ruling party consolidated power through harassing the opposition, media and civil society.

It also marked corruption and allegation of human right abuses as serious problems for Bangladesh.

‘Odhikar reported a total of 391 extrajudicial killings perpetrated by law enforcement agencies in 2019. A report from the International Federation for Human Rights released in April 2019 found that 507 people had been subject to enforced disappearance between 2009 and 2018,’ the report stated.

Established democracies also struggling

According to the report, the countries with strongest democracies, too, have experienced declines over the past 14 years.

‘Of the world’s 41 established democracies as of 2005, defined as those that had been rated free for each of the previous 20 years, 25 have since suffered net score declines,’ says the report findings.

India, considered as one of the strongest democracies of the world, scored 71 out of 100, a 4-point decrease than previous year.

While the score of US remained same as previous year, it has declined by eight points on a 100-point scale over the past 10 years.

‘Democratic processes in the United States are under threat as well,’ says the report.

Freedom House president Mike Abramowitz said, “India and the United States are the largest and perhaps the most influential democracies in the world, and their drift from liberal democratic ideals is sending exactly the wrong message.”

About the decline of democracy, Illinois State University’s distinguished professor Ali Riaz wrote in Prothom Alo, “The struggle of democracy is global but we have to find the solution locally as the democratic institutions are local. The positive thing despite all the setbacks is there are fights for democracy around the world.”

He also said that democracy must triumph braving all odds as people’s aspiration for democracy is universal.