China has about one-quarter of the world’s population but more than 80 percent of the world’s people categorized as “not free” and denied the most basic rights, according to a recent Freedom House report.
The report, “Worst of the Worst 2012: The World’s Most Repressive Societies,” ranked 19 countries where people “have no say in how they are governed and face severe consequences if they try to exercise their most basic rights, such as expressing their views, assembling peacefully, and organizing independently of the state.”
The report used a scoring system that considered separate scales for political rights and civil liberties, with a maximum number of 7 for each category, 1 being the most free and 7 categorized as least free.
China was ranked 7 for political rights and 6 for civil liberties, with a combined score of 6.5, putting the country in the ranks of the world’s most repressive regimes, including Belarus, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Laos and Cuba.
The total population represented by these 19 “not free” states and regions is 1.6 billion. China has a population of 1.3 billion.
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