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Taiwan gets high
scores in global freedom report
DEMOCRACY DOWN: The Freedom House report said
world freedoms were declining and though it rated Taiwan highly, it said pending
media deals could hurt press liberty
By Nadia Tsao and Stacy Hsu / Staff Reporter in Washington, with
Staff Writer and AFP
Taiwan continues to enjoy relatively high levels of press freedom, an annual
study by the US-based Freedom House showed.
On a scale of one to seven — with one indicating the most free and seven the
least free — the watchdog gave Taiwan a score of one for its political rights
and two for its civil liberties. These were the same grades the nation scored in
2011.
However, while the Freedom in the World 2013 report did not dedicate a detailed
section to Taiwan, an overview singled out two acquisition bids in the nation’s
media industry that it said could negatively affect diversity and press freedom.
In July last year, national regulators conditionally approved an acquisition bid
for cable television services owned by China Network Systems (CNS, 中嘉網路), the
country’s second-largest multiple service owner, by the Want Want China Times
Group (旺旺中時集團), the report said.
One of the owners of the group, which already controls sizable media resources,
has the reputation of being pro-Beijing, it added, referring to Want Want
chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明).
The overview also mentioned a controversial case in November last year in which
the proprietor of the Hong Kong-listed Next Media Group (壹傳媒集團) made a deal to
sell some of its Taiwanese outlets to a consortium comprised of some individuals
who had significant corporate interests in China.
The report added that the case was still pending approval by regulatory
agencies.
The annual assessment found that 90 countries now enjoyed full freedom, up from
87 in 2011, but that 27 countries had seen new restrictions imposed on rights of
assembly, expression and press freedoms.
China was labeled as “not free” for a 12th consecutive year, scoring a seven for
political rights and a six for civil liberties.
The report said democracy around the world was in decline last year for the
seventh year in a row as the Arab Spring led nervous autocratic leaders to clamp
down on any stirrings of dissent.
About 3 billion people, or 43 percent of the global population, enjoyed full
political rights and civil liberties, while 1.6 billion resided in partly free
countries.
By contrast, approximately 34 percent of the world’s population, or 2.3 billion
people, lived in countries deemed not free.
Russia, Iran — which stepped up its repression of journalists and bloggers — and
Venezuela — where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was re-elected against a
“badly skewed” electoral playing field — were singled out by the report.
“Our findings point to the growing sophistication of modern authoritarians,”
said Arch Puddington, Freedom House vice president for research. “They are
flexible, they distort and abuse the legal framework, they are adept at the
techniques of modern propaganda, but especially since the Arab Spring, they are
nervous, which accounts for their intensified persecution of popular movements
for change.”
There were some successes for democracy, with the most dramatic improvements
since 2008 seen in Libya, Tunisia and Myanmar. Egypt, Zimbabwe, Moldova and the
Ivory Coast were also among those where repressive restrictions were eased.
However, Mali, where rebel soldiers ousted an elected government last year,
topped the list of nations that had lost the most freedoms.
The most serious declines in freedom in the Asia-Pacific region were in the
Maldives and Sri Lanka.
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