Dharamshala: The US-based non-governmental organisation Freedom House ranked Tibet as the least free region, only second to Syria for the 5th consecutive year. The report, Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy assessed 210 countries and territories worldwide of which 83 countries and 1 territory were rated ‘Free’, 63 countries and 4 territories were ‘Partly Free’ and 49 countries and 10 territories were ‘Not Free’. 

The countries and territories were assigned with a score between zero to hundred where zero indicates least free and 100 indicates most free. The score received by each country was given on grounds of political rights and civil liberties. Tibet scored -2 out of 40 for political rights and 3 out of 60 for civil liberties, receiving a total score of 1 out of 100. 

“Tibet topping the list as the second-least free region in the whole world, that too for 5 years in a row, gives a stark insight to how severe freedom and human rights violations are in Tibet under Chinese occupation,” stated the head of DIIR’s UN, EU & Human Rights Desk, Dukthen Kyi. She further added that the most worrisome part is that the situation in Tibet is only deteriorating with time as the Chinese government implements further repressive policies on the Tibetan people in Tibet.

According to the Freedom House 2020 report, Syria is the least free country followed by Tibet, Turkmenistan, South Sudan, and North Korea. 

China was ranked as one of the 15 worst-performing countries in Freedom in the World 2020, and one of the 11 countries that Freedom House labelled for evidence of ethnic cleansing.

One of the year’s most dreadful examples of domestic repression was the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing campaign of cultural extermination in Xinjiang which is the product of decades of experience in persecuting ethnic and religious minorities, combining coercive measures and technological developments that were previously applied to Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and others cited in the Freedom House report. 

The latest edition of the annual global assessment of political rights and civil liberties revealed that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The report found that the established democracies are going in a downward trend while democracy and pluralism are under serious assault. 

Filed by UN, EU & Human Rights Desk, DIIR