Freedom House classifies Kyrgyzstan as country with authoritarian regime

Democracy score of Kyrgyzstan in comparison with 2016 has declined, having reached 6 points (5.89 points a year before). As a result, the republic has moved to the category of countries with consolidated authoritarian regime. The annual report of the human rights organization Freedom House «Nations in Transit 2017» says.

Each of 29 states in the report is assessed according to seven-point scale. The score, equal to one, corresponds to the highest indicator of democratic progress, and seven — is the lowest one.

The level of democracy is assessed according to seven indicators: national democratic governance, electoral process, civil society, independent media, local democratic governance, judicial framework and independence, corruption.

Thus, the electoral process rating declined from 5.25 to 5.5 points due to the conduct of the December constitutional referendum. In opinion of the organization, the controversial referendum was held with inadequate time to debate its sweeping changes.

Judicial framework and independence rating declined from 6.25 to 6.50 due to the judiciary’s failure to follow through on OHCHR recommendations in the Azimjon Askarov case and its support for constitutional amendments that exposed the judiciary’s bias toward the political regime.

Civil society rating declined from 4.75 to 5.00 due to increasing reports of intimidation of civic activists for the last three years, including pressure on international organizations, defamation campaigns against human rights defenders, and surveillance of human rights activists related to the constitutional referendum.

In general, according to the authors of the report, the overall indicators of democracy have declined in 18 out of 29 countries.

«For the first time in the history of reporting, the number of consolidated authoritarian regimes has exceeded the number of consolidated democracies," the report said.