Belarus remains last dictatorship of Europe

One of the most influential human rights organizations of the world Freedom House has published the annual report dedicated to the state of democracy in the countries of the former socialist camp.

The report called “Nations іn Transit” was offered for Polish experts by the director of the European office of the organisation “Freedom House” Uladzimir Shkolnikau. In the report the situation in the Central and Eastern European countries, the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia is described.

Evaluating the level of democracy in different countries, researchers considered such criterions as: the democratic nature of the democratic authorities, development of the local self-government, elections process, development of the civil society, independent mass media, independence of the justice system and corruption level.

Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia are found the most democratic countries out of all post-democratic countries.

Belarus has taken the 26th position in the rating of 29 countries and fell into the category of authoritarian regimes together with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Russia and Kyrgyzstan have almost appeared in the same category.

In the report “Nations in Transit” it is noted that over the last 10 years the countries of the Central Europe and the Baltic states have reached great progress in the sphere of human rights and democracy. Democratization in these countries has been given a nudge by the necessity to join the European Union.

Over the recent 10 years a reverse process is taking place in the countries of the CIS, experts state. Authoritarian regimes are reinforcing here. The only exception is Ukraine, where the level of freedom is growing constantly.