Global press freedom suffers sharpest fall in 50 years, report finds | Press freedom
As a turning point report, global democracy weakened significantly, the freedom of press in the world was subjected to the sharpest decline in 50 years.
According to Stockholm center International Institute of Democracy and Election Aid (Idea)In the last five years, democracy has declined in 94 countries and only one third has made progress.
“Democracy faces an excellent autocratic resurrection and storm of uncertainty because of democracy, great social and economic changes,” Thinkank Secretary General Kevin Casas-Zamora said.
“Democracies need to maintain the basic elements of democracy, such as elections and the rule of law, to fight, and at the same time reform the government in a way that provides justice, to include and shared prosperity.”
International Idea Research – Global Democracy Report 2025 – published every five years and was accepted as the most comprehensive of the species that covers 174 countries and measures democratic performance from 1975.
The questionnaire found that the freedom of the press has worsened in a quarter of the countries and has pointed out the widest deterioration since the beginning of the data set.
The three largest decreases were seen in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso and Myanmar, all of them are historically experiencing high levels of civilian conflict, poverty and political instability. The fourth largest, former president Yoon Suk Yeol has repeatedly been in South Korea, in which he has repeatedly targeted critical media and government. Insult cases used Silence to silence journalists before this year.
In the report, many different contexts were announced for the problems faced by the media. In New Zealand, a crisis was marked by the shrinkage of the media landscape, and four of five journalists left four employees in one of five employers. In Palestine, approximately 200 journalists have been killed since October 2023 and Israel put a blockade in the international press that entered the Gaza Strip independently.
“Between 2024 and 2025, Al Jazeera was targeted by both Israel and Palestinian authority, which suspended its operations on alleged tension on the national security concerns and tension to cover certain events,” he said.
Chile, partly, aims to increase the security of journalists and families due to the draft legislation of the international idea since the last report in the 2021 since the last report of the freedom of expression has recorded the biggest improvement.
Thinktank emphasized some positive developments: Africa has recorded a large part of the global progress in democracy and made up 24% of the progress – most importantly, Botsvana and South Africa. In 2024, the parliamentary elections in Jordan were praised for increasing justice and made improvements in Poland.
However, although the US is a country that is considered a leading defender of democracy around the world, the authors of the report significantly reduced both diplomatic participation and financial support for international democracy this year.
“These developments contributed to the weakening of international democratization efforts. US internal political institutions lost most of their symbolic brightness in less than six months and served as a reference point for more and more executive executives and encouraged the populist dictatorial leaders more than democracy hopes,” he said.
In 2021, the International idea added the US to the list of “backing back” democracies for the first time and pointed to a “visible deterioration ğı, which he said it started in 2019.
He argues that a measures that can encourage and strengthen democracy will offer wider votes for people living abroad.
“Improving the rights of voters living abroad can obtain democratic dividends in both home and host countries, Cas said Casas-Zamora.
