Georgia ranks 64th in the freedom of speech rating, Armenia 79th, Azerbaijan -162nd

A total of 189 countries have been evaluated on their level of freedom of speech in the influential Reporters Without Borders’ (Reporters Sans Frontières/RSF) annual rating. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been ranked 64, 79 and 162, respectively.

The top three countries in the ratings are: Norway, Sweden and Finland.

North Korea, Eritrea and Turkmenistan are rounding out the list.

The authors of the report point to some alarming global tendencies: aggression against media outlets and journalists, suppression of free speech and strengthening of authoritarian regimes. Such cases have increased by 14.4% over the past five years.

Aggravation of the situation in terms of freedom of speech has been reported in almost two-thirds of the countries surveyed. Moreover, those tendencies are most clearly manifested in democratic countries.