Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh rated 'Partly Free' by Freedom House
International human rights organization Freedom House published its annual report on the political rights and civil liberties in the world. “Freedom in the World 2017” report presents the state of freedoms in 195 countries in 2016. Each country and territory report includes an overview section, which provides historical background and a brief description of the year’s major developments, as well as a section summarizing the current state of political rights and civil liberties. In addition, each country and territory is assigned a numerical rating—on a scale of 1 to 7—for political rights and an analogous rating for civil liberties; a rating of 1 indicates the highest degree of freedom and 7 the lowest level of freedom. These ratings determine whether a country is classified as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free by the survey. In the report, Armenia remained classified as a “Partly Free” country. The watchdog organization gave Armenia an average 45 points in terms of political rights and civil liberties. Nagorno Karabakh received 33 points. The authors of the report call attention to the fact that the President of Azerbaijan has increased his authoritarian power through a constitutional referendum which was held under total control by the country’s authorities. Turkey is also classified as a “Partly Free” country but there have been serious setbacks in terms of political freedoms and civil liberties. For more details visit here
