On January 13, 2011, Freedom House released its findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey's findings, 2010 was the fifth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline-the longest period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. These declines threaten gains dating to the post-Cold War era in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the former Soviet bloc. 

According to the graphic presented in the report, where the scale 1 denotes the highest level of freedom, and 7-the lowest, the indicators for political rights and civil liberties in Armenia correspnd respectively to 6 and 4 scales. With these indicators Armenia ranks as ''partly free'' state and compared with the last year results no changes were recorded.

According to the report, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has worsened. Nagorno Karabakh, which was last year estimated as ''patly free'', this year, as a result of decline from 5 to 6 scale, was named as ''not free''. It is explained by the fact that during the last year's parliamentary elections there was no opposition.

Other states named as ''free'' were Norway, Belgium, Slovenia, Slovakia, etc. and countries named as ''not free'' were North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzebikstan, Tibet etc.

Sofia Manukyan

Source: www.hra.am