Human Freedom Index

On February 27, 2020, the Republikon Institute organized the conference Fake News in the Region – The Impact of Fake News on Central and Eastern European Countries, supported by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

With the rise of nationalism and hybrid forms of authoritarianism, the rights and freedoms of citizens are under assault in many corners of the globe. Unsurprisingly, among the countries with the most substantial deterioration in freedom in the last year are Angola, Venezuela, and Tajikistan.

Unsurprisingly, among the countries with the most substantial deteriorations in freedom in recent years are Turkey and Poland, both experiencing evident weakening of the rule of law, contracting religious freedom, and attacks on freedom of expression.

The last couple of years have seen the citizens of several CEE countries witness the erosion of hard-earned liberalism, while privately and publicly weighing on how to prevent populists in power from further trampling citizen’s freedoms and rights.

“As nationalism, authoritarianism, and populism strengthen in many countries around the world, it is becoming more important than ever to measure human freedom and the central role it plays in human progress”, said Vasquez. “The declining performance of the United States, once considered the bastion of liberty, is worrisome”.

Today we celebrate the Human Rights Day. Although it, technically, commemorates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we think the Human Freedom Index and its definition of freedom – the absence of coercive constraint – can assist us in thinking more carefully about the state of freedom around the world.

Hong Kong and Switzerland top the rankings of a new index released today that presents the state of human freedom in the world. The U.S. performance is worrisome and shows that the United States can no longer claim to be the leading bastion of liberty in the world. The Human Freedom Index (HFI) is the most comprehensive measure of freedom ever created for a large number of countries around the globe.