Can you name the countries deemed 'Not Free' in terms of political rights and civil liberties?

created by Booger

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Note: Each year, Freedom House conducts a worldwide survey of political rights and civil liberties in each country. Those countries in which political rights and civil liberties are severely limited are designated as "Not Free"
Updated July 2011
Also try: 'S' Countries
Source: Freedom in the World Survey

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'Not Free' Countries Quiz

by Booger

Created Apr 26, 2009 in Geography
Featured Apr 26, 2009
Game Plays 168,329

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	Tchaikovsky08:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:22 GMT	151 points
	Excuse my ignorance, but I was surprised Afghanistan wasn't on the list

	LAD1992:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:25 GMT	7 points
	I am shocked russia makes the list!

	sactoshc:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:27 GMT	15 points
	36 of 43...happy with my performance the first time out, but I was surprised at some that made the list and baffled by the exclusion of others.

	Kevin:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:29 GMT	15 points
	Yeah, I'm sorry, how can Israel not be on this list, given the mass disenfranchisement of the Palestinians? Also surprised there was no Afghanistan.

	sporcloid:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:33 GMT	33 points
	Is it possible to get "Cote Divoire" and "Cote D'Ivoire" as accepted responses for "Côte d'Ivoire"?

	JulieD:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:34 GMT	9 points
	Yes, I also type "Cote d'Ivoire" because I'm lazy and I always type this in geography games. :D

	Fawkes:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:38 GMT	15 points
	Yeah, I have no idea how to type the o with the ^ over it.

	Josh:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:40 GMT	24 points
	Russia makes it to the list easily. Since Putin, things have been going very wrong in the east.

	WienerJa:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:42 GMT	59 points
	if you're lazy, typing "ivory coast" is probably the best bet

	thevictor390:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 05:53 GMT	14 points
	Cote d'Ivoire worked for me, but if you still want to know how to type ô on an English keyboard, hold "alt" and press 0244 on the number pad (make sure numlock is on).

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	Josh:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 06:03 GMT	23 points
	I'm also surprised that Afghanistan is missing. And what about Turkey? A country that hasn't made it to EU due to human rights violations.

	swellwrench:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 06:25 GMT	32 points
	The E.U. obviously has much stricter human rights standards than just being considered "free."

	nearlyextinct:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 06:36 GMT	28 points
	The reason Turkey has human rights issues is because they deny the genocide of Armenia. It doesn't affect if they are free.

	Lenard:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 06:41 GMT	2 points
	I got 35, and a lot of it by guessing Afrian and Middle Eastern countries, lol. I'm kicking myself for missing Pakistan.

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	Josh:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 06:51 GMT	21 points
	nearlyextinct; another big issue with Turkey is the treatment of kurd people :)

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	davidr:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:12 GMT	15 points
	Great quiz, Booger — keep 'em coming!

	NaGfH:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:16 GMT	1 point
	My understanding on some of the exclusions is that a government has to have some semblance of control to properly oppress its people. It was interesting and educational to me which arab nations made the list and which didn't. Yay for Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, and others I'm surely forgetting.

	davidr:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:17 GMT	17 points
	@nearlyextinct: How is denying the Armenian Genocide a human rights issue? Turkey is not free because, for example, you can still be sent to jail for `insulting Turkishness' which, in practice, amounts to publicly criticizing the government. The military also has a habit of threatening to overthrow the government though, to be fair, that has most recently been because the government seems to be trying to undermine the country's constitutional secularity.

	davidr:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:25 GMT	35 points
	@lol:): The U.A.E. is rich, as long as you're not a migrant worker. And it's a pretty nice place to be, unless you're a migrant worker or, you know, one of those women who thinks there's more to life than a kitchen sink. The real joy is for the Indian and Bangladeshi construction workers whose bosses confiscate their passports to stop them running away and pay them a pittance. For bonus points, there's a massive downturn in construction at the moment so many of them have no work, which means they're not being paid, but their bosses are still hanging on to their passports. Either this is legal or it's illegal but the police don't care.

	davidr:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:34 GMT	38 points
	@Lachlan: If you're surprised about Russia, Google for Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Don't piss off the government or you'll end up in jail, in exile or dead.

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	Heef:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:46 GMT	38 points
	The big one down here at the moment if Fiji and the activities of Commodore Frank Bananarama and his censorship of the media. I'm surprised Fiji isn't on there.

	dinnas:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 08:59 GMT	56 points
	This is a poor choice for a quiz, Sporcle. It does not educate, only misinform. Why use Freedom House instead of any other similar organizations such as Reporters Without Borders? Freedom House is known to favor US allies: it was notoriously late to condemn Pinochet's Chile, for instance. Even now, they report Indonesia as free. That's a country which recognizes only six religions (no atheism, taoism, sikhism, etc.) There's censorship and restriction on the press. More importantly, the people of Aceh, West Papau, East Timor and various other places would tell you that Indonesia is not a "free" country. That's just one example. I'm sure other Sporcle users can think of other examples.

	davidr:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 09:05 GMT	7 points
	@Kevin and Heef: Yes, I was surprised by the omission of Fiji (military coup) and Israel (massive human rights abuses in Gaza, in particular, including possible war crimes, which is in no way proportionate to the genuine terrorist threat of rockets coming out of Gaza).

	dinnas:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 09:13 GMT	22 points
	Those interested might also want to check out the wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indices_of_freedom to note the discrepancies that different organizations have in reporting the freedom or lack thereof for all the different countries in the world. Some of the other countries that would have appeared on this quiz if a different source to Freedom House was used includes Indonesia, Lesotho, Mali, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Yemen, Morocco, Nepal, Haiti, Colombia and many more.

	grarap:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 10:27 GMT	27 points
	@davidr: Israel is the freest country in the middle east as long as you happen to be an Israeli citizen (arab or Jew). The palestinians are certainly not free, but I've always encountered problems as to whether or not to count the palestinian territories as part of Israel. For instance, by including them Israel drops from a 'developed' nation to 'developing'. Is that really representative?

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	GeordieGuitarist:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 13:07 GMT	18 points
	@nearlyextinct: Very recently Obama has refused to recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915 despite saying that he would before election, he also criticised Bush for not. The reason? The easiest route to the middle east is through Turkey, angering the Turks would cost them a lot of money.

	Arthur:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 13:07 GMT	28 points
	Hm. It might be just my ignorance, but it seems to me that a place that has "Democratic Republic" in its name should be free.

	Bretzky:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 13:44 GMT	15 points
	For those interested regarding Israel. Freedom House divides Israel proper from the Occupied Territories in making its assessment. Freedom House rates countries' freedom based on political rights and civil liberties; it gives a score ranging from one (1) to seven (7) with one being the best and seven the worst. For Israel proper it gives a political rights score of one and civil liberties score of two; for the Occupied Territories it gives a political rights score of six and a civil liberties score of six. Freedom House does recognize the disparity in freedom that exists between Israel and the Occupied Territories. My feeling as to why it isn't included here is probably because the Occupied Territories are not really an established country.

	Bretzky:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 13:52 GMT	9 points
	The thing to remember about Freedom House's ratings is--especially in its Civil Liberties rankings--that it uses a rather wide variety of data to make its assessment. So a country can perform poorly in any one subset of data (e.g., press freedom or religious freedom) and still do fairly well in the overall category. This is why you will sometimes get stark differences in freedom ratings between Freedom House and other more narrowly tailored ratings from other organizations that only focus on one aspect of societal freedom such as press freedom, religious freedom, women's rights, free elections, etc.

	Sparky:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 14:01 GMT	1 point
	I too was surprised by Afghanistan and Israel not being on there.

	amidabutsu:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 14:03 GMT	1 point
	I went to the Freedom House website. They do list the Occupied Territories in Israel as being not free, but they indicate that Israel is a free country. Anyone who is interested, you should check the very good Israeli B'Tselem website for more info on human rights violation in Israel: http://www.btselem.org/English/index.asp. A lot of countries are indicated to be "partially free". I would say that you are either free, or not, and that "partially free" indicates that some members of a society are not granted the same rights as others. History has shown again and again that there is no peace without justice.