The American independent organization Freedom House, which monitors the state of civil liberties in the world, published its annual Media Freedom Report on Monday, highlighting that 2010 was the year in which the fewest number of people in the world had access to free media in more than a decade, and Croatia retained last year's ranking and rating of a "partly free" country in terms of media.
In the report "Media Freedom 2011: Global Survey of Media Independence", which covers 196 countries worldwide and refers to 2010, Croatia is ranked 85th with a rating of 41 and the status of a country with "partly free" media.
The research found that only 15 percent of the world's population lives in countries with free media, while 42 percent have partially free media, and 43 percent live in countries with unfree media.
Freedom House assigns an overall score from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) based on 23 methodological questions and 109 indicators. Countries have "free" media with scores from 0 to 30, "partly free" from 31 to 60, and "not free" from 61 to 100.
Croatia is not specifically mentioned in the report, but in the section that discusses Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is stated that the overall state of media freedom has remained unchanged.
At the same time, a decline in media freedom was recorded in the somewhat freer region of Central and Eastern Europe, while progress was recorded in Moldova, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia remain countries with a worrying state of media freedom, and significant negative trends have been recorded in Hungary and Ukraine, according to the report, which ranked Croatia 12th out of 29 countries in the region.
Of the countries of Southeast Europe, Slovenia is ahead of Croatia in 48th place and with a rating of 25, as the only one from the region in the category of "free" countries. Serbia is 72nd with a rating of 33, and Montenegro is 80th with a rating of 37.
Behind Croatia are Macedonia and BiH in 96th place with a total rating of 48, Albania in 102nd place with 50 and Kosovo in 104th place with a rating of 51.
The top of the world press freedom rankings this year is once again held by Scandinavian countries, with Finland at the top with a score of 10, followed by Norway and Sweden with a score of 11, while Burma, Eritrea, Libya, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and North Korea, which is last on the list with a score of 97, are at the bottom.
The USA ranks 17th with a rating of 17, Russia ranks 173rd with a rating of 81, and China ranks 184th with a total rating of 85. Among the "partially free" countries are also three members of the European Union - Italy, Bulgaria and Romania, according to the Freedom House report.
According to the annual report, out of 196 countries analyzed, the media is free in 68, partly free in 65, and not free in 63.
Source ZaMirZINE
