Regional Trends

Africa

Military coups persisted, while noncompetitive elections and armed conflicts undermined freedoms.

Freedom declined in Africa in 2025, with political rights and civil liberties deteriorating in 18 of 54 countries and improving in just 11. Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau became the eighth and ninth countries in the region to succumb to military coups since 2019. Military juntas in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso tried to weaken multilateralism by formally leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but the regional bloc was still able to play a key role in coordinating a military and political response to an attempted coup in Benin at the end of the year.

Noncompetitive elections cemented the political grip of coup leaders and their parties in Chad, Gabon, and Guinea. Brutal violence against protesters by security forces, the unfair disqualification of political opponents, and the evasion of term limits also produced victories for incumbents in Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Central African Republic. Meanwhile, in Tunisia, the administration of President Kaïs Saïed intensified its repression of dissent by using military courts to try civilian critics of the regime and prosecuting lawyers who defended human rights activists. By contrast, free and fair general elections in Malawi led to a peaceful transfer of power, lifting the country into the Free category for the first time since 1998.

At age 92, President Paul Biya of Cameroon became the world’s oldest leader after securing a new term in an election marred by violence against protesters. Biya was one of a growing number of elderly presidents in Africa, where the median age is just 19. The generational mismatch could mean that more protests against corruption and youth unemployment, like those seen in Madagascar, Morocco, and Kenya in 2025, will erupt in the coming years. An alternative scenario was visible in Senegal, where 45-year-old President Bassirou Diomaye Faye continued to ease restrictions on rights after coming to office in breakthrough elections in 2024.

Ongoing armed conflicts put civilians at risk in several African countries. In Sudan, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committed mass killings and sexual violence against civilians while seizing control of the city of El Fasher from the regular Sudanese Armed Forces. People living in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo—the scene of protracted fighting among the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, the Congolese military, and other armed groups—were subjected to lethal violence, displacement, sexual assault, and forced labor. Both countries’ conflicts have produced immeasurable human suffering and involve a myriad of players, including foreign powers and nonstate groups, which has complicated efforts to forge durable ceasefires.

Americas

The region faced challenges to security as well as to freedoms of assembly and association, despite gains in electoral process.

Major threats to freedom in the Americas during 2025 included criminal violence and mounting restrictions on civic space. Although the region features some of the freest countries in the world, only six countries earned score improvements for the year, while 12 registered score declines. El Salvador recorded the region’s largest score decline for the second consecutive year, due in part to the abolition of presidential term limits. In neighboring Honduras, infighting among members of the country’s top electoral authority and vote-counting delays undermined the integrity of the November presidential election. Contested electoral processes, intensified repression, and the influence of armed groups and criminal networks continued to deepen authoritarian misrule in Venezuela and drive mass displacement.

Organized crime and violence plagued Free, Partly Free, and Not Free countries in the region. In Colombia, the collapse of President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace initiative and clashes among criminal organizations that operated along the border with Venezuela fueled a surge in kidnappings and homicides, including the murder of an opposition leader. Persistent strife in Haiti further delayed long-overdue elections and restricted the mobility of citizens, resulting in additional declines in Haiti’s score. Even Costa Rica, which was once viewed as an exception to the insecurity among its neighbors, struggled to address rising criminal violence and the high-profile murder of an exiled Nicaraguan army major and dissident.

Freedoms of assembly and association also came under assault in 2025. Authorities in Argentina and Panama used enhanced security measures to quell pension-related protests. Meanwhile, legislation adopted in El Salvador, Paraguay, and Peru introduced greater government supervision of nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign funding, raising concerns about their ability to operate freely.

In the United States, an escalation in both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people’s ability to engage in free expression, and efforts by the new administration to undermine anticorruption safeguards all contributed to a 3-point decline, bringing the country’s score to 81 out of 100.

Despite these worrisome trends, several countries secured score improvements thanks to free and fair elections. After nearly 20 years in power, Bolivia’s ruling Movement for Socialism party peacefully transferred control over the presidency and legislature to centrist candidate Rodrigo Paz and a group of opposition parties, playing a part in the country’s improvement from Partly Free to Free status, which it last held in 2002. Elsewhere in the region, officials in Suriname implemented recent election reforms that established a one-person, one-vote system and allowed smaller parties to gain representation, and citizens in Jamaica faced less harassment and intimidation during the 2025 general elections than in some previous years’ balloting.

Asia-Pacific

Some countries suffered from violent conflict and sham elections, while in others protesters demanded an end to government corruption.

Freedom declined slightly in the Asia-Pacific region, with 11 countries experiencing an overall deterioration in political rights and civil liberties and six registering gains. Fiji moved from Partly Free to Free status due to further improvements in the rule of law. The interim government of Bangladesh announced that parliamentary elections would take place in early 2026, though significant political turmoil persisted following the 2024 ouster of a repressive regime. Elsewhere, elections were engineered to shore up authoritarian control. In December, Myanmar’s military junta conducted the first round of a sham vote across the limited territory that it controlled, adding to one of the largest score declines in the region. The balloting lacked any genuine opposition candidates and was marred by numerous arrests, violence, and intimidation of dissidents. The Chinese Communist Party’s control over Hong Kong was reinforced through undemocratic Legislative Council elections that excluded candidates who were deemed disloyal to Beijing. Separately, major human rights violations related to scam centers in parts of Southeast Asia continued to be reported.

Concerns over corruption and inequality sparked major protests in the region, leading to harsh crackdowns and government shakeups in some cases. Sustained demonstrations in Mongolia over the extravagant lifestyle of the prime minister’s family culminated in his resignation following a no-confidence vote. Mass protests in Nepal, fueled in part by anger about political corruption, were met with lethal violence by security forces and then descended into significant unrest, contributing to a 3-point decline. The prime minister resigned, and his interim replacement was chosen by unconstitutional means, having been nominated through an informal poll on the messaging platform Discord. Widespread protests in Indonesia over grievances like parliament members’ generous housing allowances resulted in thousands of arbitrary detentions, while numerous Filipinos rallied in response to a corruption scandal involving flood-control projects.

New bouts of armed conflict erupted during the year. A terrorist attack in April on a group of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir sparked a brief but serious military clash between India and Pakistan, whose forces traded air strikes and artillery bombardments before declaring a fragile truce. Fighting over disputed territory also broke out between Cambodia and Thailand in July. Despite agreeing to a ceasefire, the two sides resumed combat at the end of the year, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in both countries. Political instability persisted in Thailand in 2025, eventually prompting the dissolution of the parliament and the scheduling of fresh elections for 2026.

Eurasia

No country recorded improvements in political rights and civil liberties as states asserted control over the media, academic freedom, and the opposition.

Restrictions on academic freedom, political opposition, and media freedom contributed to an overall decline in freedom in Eurasia, with three countries suffering losses in their scores. Eurasia was the only region in the world that had no countries register an improvement, though there was a minor gain in the separatist-led Georgian territory of Abkhazia. Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continued to prevent that country from holding either legislative or executive elections due to safety and voter-access concerns as well as a constitutional prohibition on balloting under martial law. On a more positive note, an August 2025 law that allowed men between the ages of 18 and 22 to leave Ukraine led to increased freedom of movement. In Russia, the authorities ramped up pressure on independent media outlets and continued to arrest people for antiwar speech and activism as well as alleged participation in the “international LGBT movement,” which had previously been designated as an “extremist” organization.

In Azerbaijan, officials imprisoned two academics on fabricated charges of treason. Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral candidate who had advocated for improved relations with Armenia, and Igbal Abilov, a researcher who focused on the Talysh ethnic minority group, were sentenced to 15 years and 18 years in prison, respectively. In Georgia, professors who were critical of the government faced dismissal from their posts, amid broader efforts by the ruling Georgian Dream party to expand its political control over the education system. In addition, the Georgian Dream government established a parliamentary commission to investigate members of the opposition, and arrested those who refused to participate, sentencing some to prison on trumped-up or fabricated charges. These measures contributed to Georgia’s 4-point score decline for the year, which was the largest in the Eurasia region.

Attempts to control or weaken the political opposition also led to score declines elsewhere. In Transnistria, a Moscow-backed territory of Moldova that has operated with de facto independence since a brief military conflict in 1992, all candidates who won in the November 2025 elections were affiliated with the ruling Renewal party, and genuine opposition candidates did not have the opportunity to run.

The media faced pressure from the state in a number of countries. In Kyrgyzstan, President Sadyr Japarov’s government declared that the prominent independent media outlets Kloop and Temirov Live were “extremist” organizations. The government also imprisoned several journalists affiliated with the outlets. In Moldova, an Amnesty International report noted an increase in self-censorship among journalists, citing a risk of legal repercussions or harassment by authorities.

Europe

Gains in judicial independence were offset by the effects of political impasses on governance.

Respect for political rights and civil liberties was largely stable in Europe, which remained the freest region in the world. Ten countries experienced an overall improvement in freedom, while eight registered an overall decline. In Serbia, which tied Bulgaria for the largest decline in the region at 3 points, antigovernment protests were met with excessive force by police and violence by supporters of the ruling party.

Assertions of judicial independence fueled several improvements in the region. Lithuania and Spain each gained 1 point, as the former displayed increased transparency in its judicial appointments, and judicial vacancies were filled in the latter after a prolonged political deadlock. Despite facing significant political pressure, courts in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina issued rulings that demonstrated their independence. Bulgaria bucked the trend, however, as its Supreme Judicial Council, which is responsible for judicial and prosecutorial appointments and management, continued to act with an expired mandate.

Political standoffs impeded other government functions throughout the region. In Kosovo, for example, newly elected legislators were unable to form a government for most of the year, while the caretaker government reportedly exceeded its technical mandate, resulting in snap elections; the impasse offset the country’s gains on judicial independence and physical security. Belgium lost 1 point as political parties failed to form a government in the Brussels region following June 2024 elections. Montenegro and Slovakia similarly declined by 1 point each, but in their cases the problem was undemocratic corner-cutting rather than gridlock: In Slovakia, the government has increasingly used fast-tracked legislative procedures for major legal and institutional changes, and numerous government-proposed laws passed in Montenegro through an expedited procedure and without legislative debate.

Migration continued to be a significant issue in Europe. Cypriot and Polish authorities were accused by the European Court of Human Rights and civil society groups of detaining asylum seekers in crowded and unsanitary conditions for lengthy periods of time, employing disproportionate force against migrants in border areas, and failing to examine asylum claims before expelling individuals. Nongovernmental organizations working on migration issues were also under pressure from authorities; Italian groups, for instance, faced fines, vessel seizures, and electronic surveillance of their leadership. In Turkey, which remained the only country rated Not Free in the region, authorities moved to phase out protections that had previously been provided to the roughly 2.4 million registered Syrian refugees living in the country; the changes followed the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria in December 2024.

Middle East

Syria received the world’s largest score improvement for the year, bringing cautious optimism to a region dominated by entrenched authoritarian rule.

Armed conflict, deepening repression, and changes in leadership contributed to a shifting landscape for political rights and civil liberties in the Middle East. Out of 13 countries, Syria and Lebanon earned score improvements, while Kuwait and Iran suffered further declines.

The region remained home to some of the least free places on earth, including the Gaza Strip, whose total score was just 2 points out of 100. The Israel-Hamas war raged on for most of the year, with Gaza’s Palestinian population facing famine and a broader humanitarian catastrophe. Hamas continued to target Israeli troops and civilian areas with small arms and rocket attacks, and Israeli air strikes and ground attacks raised the death toll in Gaza to more than 70,000 people. Despite a ceasefire agreement in October that brought some relief to the people of Gaza and allowed the return of hostages to Israel, intermittent violence persisted from both sides. The conflict had also spread to Iran for 12 days in June, when Israeli air strikes killed more than 1,000 Iranians, including over 400 civilians, and Iranian missile attacks killed about 30 Israelis, nearly all of them civilians.

Freedom continued to decline in Kuwait, which had previously been seen as one of the most democratic of the Persian Gulf monarchies, following the emir’s unilateral dissolution of the elected parliament in 2024. His government ruled without a legislature throughout 2025, and eroded civil liberties by revoking the citizenship of tens of thousands of people, effectively rendering them stateless and preventing them from freely traveling outside the country. The security of citizenship was also weakened in Oman, where a law ratified in February threatened to strip Omanis of their citizenship for offenses including verbally insulting the sultan.

While new leadership brought minor improvements as well as cautious optimism to Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, people in these countries still faced threats to their civil liberties. In Lebanon, the parliament elected a president and designated a prime minister after nearly two years of political deadlock. However, a crippling economic crisis, cronyism, and political fragmentation remained stubborn obstacles to positive reform. Parliamentary elections in Iraq were generally well conducted and peaceful, though there were allegations of vote buying. Syria received the largest score improvement globally in 2025, as foreign and independent local media outlets were able to report critically from inside Syria, civil society organizations were able to register and operate more freely, and oppressive Assad-era legal restrictions started to be rolled back. Despite these gains, the new government’s forces and other armed groups continued to engage in ethnic and sectarian violence during the year.