Freedom House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Freedom House is a research institute, primarily governmentally-funded and headquarted in Washington, D.C., focused on promoting liberal democracy in the world.[3] It currently has field offices in about a dozen countries including Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, Jordan, Mexico, and a number of countries in Central Asia.
Freedom House is best known for its annual reports on the degree of democratic freedoms in each country in the world, by which it seeks to assess the current state of civil and political rights in every nation on Earth. These reports are often quoted in the media and often used by political scientists when doing research.[4]
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[edit] History
The organization was founded by Wendell Wilkie, Eleanor Roosevelt, George Field, Dorothy Thompson, Herbert Bayard Swope, and others in 1941. Originally launched in response to the threat posed by Nazism, it now describes itself as a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Freedom House states that it:
"has vigorously opposed dictatorships in Central America and Chile, apartheid in South Africa, the suppression of the Prague Spring, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the brutal violation of human rights in Cuba, Burma, the People's Republic of China, and Iraq. It has championed the rights of democratic activists, religious believers, trade unionists, journalists, and proponents of free markets."
During the 1940s, Freedom House supported the Marshall Plan and the establishment of NATO. It was highly critical of McCarthyism. During the 1950s and 1960s, it supported the U.S. civil rights movement and its leadership included several prominent Civil Rights activists. It supported Andrei Sakharov, other Soviet dissidents, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. Freedom House assisted the post-Communist societies in the establishment of independent media, non-governmental think tanks, and the core institutions of electoral politics.
More recently, it supported citizens involved in revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. It states that "In Jordan, Freedom House worked to stem violence against women; in Algeria, it sought justice for victims of torture; in Uzbekistan, a brutal dictatorship, it sought to defend human rights advocates; in Venezuela, it worked with those seeking to protect and promote human rights in a difficult political environment."[5]
[edit] Organization
Freedom House is a non profit organization. Offices and programs have been set up around the world to promote democracy, however it has been seen as an American Organization. It does not identify itself with either the American Republican or the Democratic parties.
It is controlled by a Board of Trustees, which it describes as composed of 'business and labor leaders, former senior government officials, scholars, writers, and journalists'. While some board members were born outside the United States, and many have been affiliated with international groups, all are current residents of the United States. The board is currently chaired by Peter Ackerman. Ackerman took over chairmanship of the board in September of 2005 from James Woolsey. Other notable board members include Steve Forbes, Samuel Huntington, Azar Nafisi, Farooq Kathwari, P. J. O'Rourke, Mara Liasson, and Mark Palmer.
Freedom House is funded by a number of foundations, including Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Soros Foundation. It also receives funding from the US Government through the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and the State Department. Around ⅔ of its income comes from government sources.[6]
The organisation states that government funding also comes from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway and the European Union. "Freedom House chooses to respond to specific funding opportunities, but never accepts funds from government institutions, including U.S. government agencies, in the form of contracts, and never functions as an extension of any government."[7]
[edit] Reports
- See also: Freedom in the World 2006
Since 1973, Freedom House has produced a yearly report, Freedom in the World, giving its assessment of the degree of democracy and freedom in nations and significant disputed territories around the world, and produces annual scores representing the levels of political rights and civil liberties in each state and territory, on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). This same report has been widely used by political scientists.[8] This report is also now being used to judge good governance in countries being considered for President George W. Bush's Millennium Challenge Account foreign aid program. Freedom House's country ratings are made available annually, with its past ratings also available.
In its 2003 report, for example, Canada (judged as fully free and democratic) got a perfect score of a "1" in civil liberties and a "1" in political rights, earning it the designation of "free." Nigeria got a "5" and a "4", earning it the designation of "partly free," while North Korea scored the lowest rank of "7-7", and was thus dubbed "not free." Nations are scored from 0 to 4 on several questions and the sum determines the rankings. Example questions: "Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair elections?", "Is there an independent judiciary?", "Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?" [9] Freedom House states that the rights and liberties of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[10]
Freedom House also produces annual reports on press freedom (Press Freedom Survey), governance in the nations of the former Soviet Union (Nations in Transit), and countries on the borderline of democracy (Countries at the Crossroads). In addition, one-time reports have included a survey of women's freedoms in the Middle East.
Freedom House generally uses standard geographic regions for its reports, though it groups the countries of the Middle East and North Africa together, separately from Sub-Saharan Africa; and it still uses the arguably outdated concept of Western Europe, to include countries such as Turkey and Cyprus, while categorizing Central and Eastern Europe separately -- a division stemming from the Cold War era which ignores the eastwards expansion of such organizations such the EU and NATO. However, these groupings have nothing to do with the individual country ratings; they're merely used to make nations easier to find when perusing their reports, and also for comparative statistics between the modern day and the ratings of decades past.
[edit] Other activities
In addition to these reports, Freedom House participates in advocacy initiatives, currently focused on North Korea, Africa, and religious freedom. It has offices in a number of countries, where it promotes and assists local human rights workers and non-government organizations.
On January 12, 2006, as part of a crackdown on unauthorized nongovernmental organizations, the Uzbek government ordered Freedom House to suspend operations in Uzbekistan. Resource and Information Centers managed by Freedom House in Tashkent, Namangan, and Samarkand offered access to materials and books on human rights, as well as technical equipment, such as computers, copiers and Internet access. The government warned that criminal proceedings could be brought against Uzbek staff members and visitors following recent amendments to the criminal code and Code on Administrative Liability of Uzbekistan. Other human rights groups have been similarly threatened and obliged to suspend operations.
The Financial Times has reported that Freedom House is one of several organisations selected by the State Department to receive funding for 'clandestine activities' inside Iran.[1]
Freedom House is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organisations that monitors violations of free expression, and campaigns to defend journalists, writers, Internet users and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
[edit] Criticism and commentary
Freedom House has faced accusations from critics over the years, some of whom have described the organization as being a "right-wing"[11] "anticommunist propaganda institution"[12]. Specific ratings that have been attacked include Cuba's rating of 7-7 as well as Cuba's inclusion in Freedom House's list of the world's 'worst' (most repressive) regimes. Frank Calzón who has served as director of the Cuban Program of Freedom House has been described by the Washington Times as an "anti-Castro activist".
An article from 1990 argues that the organization was neoconservative, for example arguing that several prominent members at this time were neoconservatives.[2] More recent critics have also used expressions like "neo-conservative think tank".[3]
However, Freedom House reports also mention criticisms of both the US and Israel.[13] It has been highly critical of some traditional US allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Chile under Pinochet, classifying them as "Not Free". It was also strongly critical of apartheid South Africa and military dictatorships in Latin America. Its ratings are, despite some differences, highly correlated with several other ratings of democracy and widely used political science research.[14] The organisation states that its board of trustees contains Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are a mix of business and labor leaders, former senior government officials, scholars and journalists.[15]
Freedom House's work has also aroused criticism from those who favour the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, or who worry that, for instance, entitling a report "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques" study [16] falls short of the ideal of neutral assessment of freedom. Others would retort that Saudi Arabia is a nation which routinely executes homosexuals, refuses to allow women the right to drive or go in public with their heads exposed or even to travel without their husbands' permission, and which outlaws even the possession of non-Muslim religious works by its citizens, and that there can be no possible measure of freedom that makes any sense which treats Saudi Arabia in a "neutral" fashion.
Other problems with the methodology have been alleged:[citation needed] Some democracies qualify various rights.
- The right to freedom of speech may have de facto exclusion of certain groups, views, or types of speech. For example: In some European nations it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.
- The right to travel freely. For example U.S. Citizens will be prosecuted for travelling to Cuba (without government authorization).[17]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Freedom House
- Freedom House:when “freedom” is only a pretext, Voltaire Network, September 2004
- What is "good" press freedom? The difficulty of measuring freedom of the press worldwide (PDF), Christina Holtz-Bacha, 2004.
[edit] Annual surveys
- Freedom House Publications
- 2006 essay and survey data
- Annual Report 2005
- Annual Report 2004
- Annual Report 2003
- Annual Report 2002
- Annual Report 2001
