By Alpha Abu
Sierra Leone has been ranked among the top five countries in Africa with the most freedom of expression.
The country is ranked 4th, below Botswana at the top, followed by Ghana, Senegal and above Namibia. Globally, Sierra Leone is ranked 53rd. And at the top at global level is Denmark followed by Switzerland, Norway, Canada and then Sweden.
The rankings, which were prepared by Global Expression, consider North Korea as the worst country in 2019 in terms of freedom of expression, followed by Eritrea, Turkmenistan and Syria. Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia all share equally poor ratings.
On the area of freedom from political killings, four of the five countries are in Africa. DR Congo takes the lead and followed by Zimbabwe, Burundi and Uganda. The other country is Syria.
The report says that 971 journalists have been killed around the world since 2009 and 250 others are behind bars up to last year. 2019 was a terrible year also for human rights defenders with 304 killed in various parts of the world.
According to the report, leaders have been very autocratic, abusing power and “cementing exclusionary politics’’, whilst also attacking journalists and ‘’chipping away at democratic institutions’’.
China, India, Turkey, Russia, Iran and Bangladesh were the biggest and influential countries that have declined considerably over the past year and these are countries viewed as wielding power and influence in their regions and at world stage.
Armenia, Gambia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia are said to have made the greatest democratic gains recently. The United States is seen as an ‘’increasingly hostile environment for communicators and activists’’.
The Global Expression report focuses not just on the activities of media practitioners but also on how the general public access information and communicate freely.
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