By KUNA,
Washington : Kuwait topped the list of freedom of the press in the Arab world, according to an annual survey of media independency in 195 countries and territories.
The survey said the country was one of the very few to enjoy such freedom not only of the press, but also of broadcast and internet media.
According to the annual survey report of the US-based Freedom House, a non-governmental American media watchdog, Kuwait was one of only a “handful of countries to rank highest in print, broadcast, and internet media freedom.” The survey noted improvement among countries ranked worst in press freedom in the Middle East, saying the Arab world, which has had some of the lowest levels of media freedom, has nevertheless steadily improved.
The Freedom of the Press 2008 survey rates countries as free, partly free, or not free across three categories: the legal environment in which media outlets operate; political influence on reporting and access to information; and economic pressures on content and the dissemination of news.
Countries were scored on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing total government control over mass media, and zero indicating perfect freedom.
The survey said Kuwait came first in the Arab work, and put Israel as the top in the Middle East and North Africa regions as a whole.
Kuwait scored 54 points, Lebanon 55 points, and Egypt 59 points.
It said 15 countries in the two regions, or about 76 percent of the population in the Middle East and North Africa, were considered not free.
Christopher Walker, director of studies for Freedom House, told KUNA that countries designated as not free “do not have the sorts of safeguards and guarantees in legal, economic, and political spheres,” in place for the media.
“Conversely, those in the free category have more rather than less of these, and countries in the middle have some but not all,” he said.
Most of the improvement in press freedom was linked to the emergence of new media, such as satellite channels, internet news sites, and blogs which have quickly emerged in the Arab World, the annual report said.
However, the biggest factor stated by the Freedom House survey is the efforts made within the media to push for more freedom in their countries.
Press freedoms worldwide are under threat, according to the survey, especially in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union countries.
Out of 195 countries and territories, 72 were rated free, 59 partly free, and 64 were not free, a drop since 2006. However, declines in individual countries accounted were larger than in past years, the survey found.
Finland, Iceland, and Denmark ranked best among the world in terms of press freedoms, it found.
The countries ranked at the very bottom of the list included North Korea, Burma, and Turkmenistan.
The release of the survey comes just ahead of World Press Freedom Day, marked on May 3.