RIGHTS GROUP: EGYPT COUP STUNS DEMOCRACY TREND

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06704854
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: January 8, 2018
• Case Number: F-2017-02456
• Publication Date: January 23, 2014

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WARNING: TOPIC: HUMAN RIGHTS, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL, MILITARY,
HEALTH, LEADER, ENVIRONMENT, DOMESTIC POLITICAL, MEDIA
SERIAL: PLR2014012344126335
BODY
COUNTRY: EGYPT, RUSSIA, AFGHANISTAN, CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC, CHINA,
ECUADOR, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, GUINEA, HONDURAS, IRAQ, KENYA,
NEPAL, NORTH KOREA, PAKISTAN, SAUDI ARABIA, SOMALIA, SOUTH SUDAN,
SUDAN, SYRIA, TURKEY, TURKMENISTAN, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES,
UZBEKISTAN, VENEZUELA, WESTERN SAHARA, YEMEN, ZIMBABWE
SUBJ: (U) RIGHTS GROUP: EGYPT COUP STUNS DEMOCRACY TREND
SOURCE: Beirut The Daily Star Online in English 1334
GMT 23 Jan 14
Middle East (U)
TEXT:
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[Computer selected and disseminated without OSC editorial
intervention] January 23, 2014 01:34 PM
(The Daily Star) -
NEW YORK: Civil rights and liberties around the world declined for
the eighth straight year, dragged down by the Egyptian military's
coup, Venezuela clinging to authoritarianism and Russia's crackdown
on opposition groups, according to a pro-democracy watchdog group.
The erosion of civil liberties and rigCivil rights and liberties
around the world declined for the eighth straight year, dragged
down
by the Egyptian military's coup, Venezuela clinging to
authoritarianism and Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown
on
opposition groups, according to a pro-democracy watchdog group.
The erosion of civil liberties and rights in 2013 was also driven
by
vicious civil wars or terror campaigns in Syria, Central African
Republic, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and Yemen,
Freedom
House said Thursday.
The report showed 54 nations showed declines in political rights
and
civil liberties, and 40 showed gains - the eighth year in a row
that
erosion exceeded improvement, and the longest stretch since the
first
Freedom House democracy report was published 41 years ago.
A year ago, the Washington-based Freedom House had pointed to the
pro-democratic Arab Spring rallies in Cairo since 2011 as a hopeful
sign for reform in Egypt and urged Washington to encourage the
trend.
Instead it resulted in a coup deposing democratically elected
President Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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"The United States has influence in Egypt, we give the Egyptian
military major assistance, yet we have been unwilling to even
describe what happened as a coup, and Secretary of State John Kerry
has said, on Aug. 1, that Maj. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and the
force now in power are 'restoring democracy,'" Arch Puddington,
Freedom House's research director, told The Associated Press.
"We see developments in Egypt since the coup as a major step
backward," Puddington said. "Conditions in Egypt are dangerously
close to conditions under Hosni Mubarek before the Arab Spring."
Freedom House, which has ranked national trends in civil rights and
liberties since the 1970s, said it is worried by a new trend in
totalitarianism, in the form of bogus democracies, in which the
ruling party or class cripples the opposition, co-opts the media
and
hobbles civil society groups, without crushing or banning them.
Elections are held that are nominally free and fair, but which
invariably endorse the ruling establishment.
Freedom House calls this "modern authoritarianism" and cited
elections last year in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Ecuador as examples
of
the trend. It also pointed to the Russia government dominance of TV
and the recent dissolution of independent news agency RIA Novosti,
which has been merged with nationalist media outlet Russia Today.
Ukraine under President Viktor Yanukovych has also gained control
of
media outlets and censored opposition candidates, Freedom House
said.
It noted that China has pressured news outlets by delaying or
withholding visas for foreign reporters who write about human
rights
abuses or about the business interests of China's leaders and their
families.
Turkey set a worrisome European example by jailing reporters,
imprisoning more than any other nation, and by pressuring media
outlets to sell their interests to government cronies.
Freedom House said, political gridlock between President Barack
Obama
and his Republican opponents in Congress has hobbled the United
States' response to developments in the Middle East.
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"We did see some hope a year ago; what concerns us is that the
administration tends to lose interest and to retreat when
conditions
get more complicated and difficult," Puddington said.
In addition, Freedom House noted that the Obama administration had
freed few detainees from Guantanamo, as the president had once
promised.
The group also pointed to the uproar over U.S. eavesdropping and
data-collection under by the National Security Agency, as disclosed
by former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden.
Separately, the White House "came under fire during the year after
prosecutors gained access to the telephone records of journalists
who
worked for The Associated Press as part of an internal
investigation
into leaked national security information," the Freedom House
report
said.
Among the more positive trends seen in 2013 by Freedom House, the
number of electoral democracies increased by four to 122, with the
addition of Honduras, Kenya, Nepal and Pakistan.
Freedom House also released its "worst of the worst" list of
countries that ranked at the bottom of both the political rights
and
civil liberties spectrums: Central African Republic, Equatorial
Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It also ranked two territories, Tibet
under China, and Moroccan-ruled Western Sahara, as equally bad.
[Description of Source: Beirut The Daily Star Online in English --
Website of the independent daily, The Daily Star; URL:
http://dailystar.com.lb/]
(U) This product may contain copyrighted material; authorized use
is
for national security purposes of the United States Government
only
Any reproduction, dissemination, or use is subject to the OSC usage
policy and the original copyright.
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