TRNC ranked high among free countries of the world, Nigeria, Turkey and Zimbabwe far behind

A new report released by the independent watchdog organization Freedom House has ranked the TRNC as the 81 free country of the world out of 195 countries and 14 territories in the “Freedom in the World 2018” rankings with a score of 94 points.

Finland, Norway and Sweden, with a perfect 100 score, took first place, followed by Canada, with 99 points in second while Luxembourg is tied in third place--alongside Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.

At the bottom of the scale were North Korea and Eritrea (3 points), South Sudan (2 points), the Tibet region of China (1) and Syria (-1 point).

In Africa, South Africa is rated very free with 78 points, while Nigeria and Zimbabwe are rated fairly free with 50 and 30 points respectively.

The new report by the US-based think tank, says that democratic principles such as election integrity and freedom of the press are weakening globally for the 12th consecutive year.

According to Freedom House, which analyzed data from 195 countries over the 2017 calendar year, 88 countries were rated "free," 58 countries were rated "partly free," and 49 countries were rated "not free" in its latest report.

In 1988, the TRNC was ranked as a "semi-free country", and since 2002, the index has been ranked as 1 (best) and 7 (worst) in the world.
 
On Turkey, the report says that the level of freedom in Turkey has declined the most out of any country in the past ten years and for the first time since 1999, Turkey got 32 points out of 100 in the report.

The report states a global decline in freedom since 2006, while democracy declined in 2017, the most serious crisis after many years.

Among the report's major findings was the weakening of the United States as a champion of democracy.

It is reported that the decline in US political and individual freedoms and the abandonment of the US "global advocacy for democracy" are among the reasons for the bad progress in 2017.

The report said that since 2006, there has been a clear decline in freedoms in 113 countries, with clear progress in 62 countries.