World Press Freedom Index: press freedom declined around the world in 2014

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Reporters Without Borders released the annual World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries performance according to criteria including media independence, legislative framework and the level of censorship prevailing in the country, and the infrastructure environment in which the media operate.

The index highlights the worldwide deterioration in freedom of information in 2014 because of wars, the growing non-state actors like Islamic State and Boko Haram, violence during demonstrations and the economic crisis.

According to the index there was a great decline in freedom of information in 2014. Almost 2/3 of the 180 countries surveyed for the Index performed worse than they did in 2013. The indicator, which measures the overall level of violations of freedom of information, says that violations have increased to 3,719 (8%) over 2014.

This year three Scandinavian countries was on top (Finland, followed by Norway and Denmark) At the bottom of the index there was (Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea) with the worst performance. This year, in north America Canada was among the top 20 countries and Ranked the 8th, while the United States   this year was down three places to the 49th .In Europe, UK ranked 34th and France ranked 38th.

When it comes to the Middle East and North Africa, Libya had the worst performance after it had fallen 17 places to the 154th. Tunisia had best performance with seven places rise to the 126th. The highest Arabic country in the index was Kuwait in the 90th place. Lebanon ranked the 98th.

Sudan Followed by Syria had the least Ranks in the index (174th, 178th respectively).

To see the full index

Some Arab countries in the index are listed below: