Annual Report by Freedom House: “Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. A total of 54 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, while only 35 countries registered improvements.
The largest declines in freedom for the calendar year were caused by military coups and efforts by incumbent leaders to crush peaceful dissent or change constitutional rules in their favor. Guinea-Bissau received the year’s single largest score change, losing 8 points on Freedom in the World’s 100-point scale after the November general elections were disrupted by a coup in which armed men stormed the election commission’s office and destroyed ballots. Military officers also ousted the elected government in Madagascar, bringing the total number of African countries to have experienced a coup since 2019 to nine. In Burkina Faso, which has been under military rule since a 2022 coup, the score declined by 5 points as state security forces and junta-sponsored militias engaged in mass killings and forced displacement of Fulani civilians, while Islamist insurgents attacked people of other faiths and imposed their own religious practices in areas under their control.
Tanzania registered the second most significant deterioration in rights and liberties in 2025, losing 7 points and sinking further into the Not Free category. The incumbent president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, was declared the winner of an election marred by the exclusion of opposition candidates, restrictions on the media, a campaign of forced disappearances of political opponents, and widespread violence against protesters that resulted in at least 1,000 deaths. El Salvador tied with Madagascar for the third largest decline in the world, losing 5 points. Salvadoran authorities persecuted high-profile academics who were critical of the government, threats against the media drove journalists into exile, and the government seized land without providing compensation. The Legislative Assembly, dominated by President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party, passed a constitutional reform that abolished presidential term limits and extended the terms from five to six years, clearing the way for Bukele to seek reelection indefinitely…(More)”.
