Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela are at the bottom of the new Chapultepec Index 2022 ranking on press freedom that was presented this Friday at the 78th General Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in Madrid together with the Andrés Bello Catholic University of Venezuela (UCAB).
The new edition of 2022 covers the period from August 2, 2021 to August 1, 2022 and serves as an indicator that shows the conditions for the exercise of freedom of the press in America.
The countries of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba are in positions 22, 21 and 20 respectively and are the only ones that fall within the category of countries “without freedom of expression”.
These three countries are also the only ones with three of the four dimensions that are taken into account with the worst results: informed citizens free to express themselves, the practice of journalism, violence and impunity, and government control of the media.
“We see new and old practices of criminalizing journalists in some countries. Some unfortunate homicides occurred even in front of the relatives of these journalists, as happened in Venezuela, in addition to new hate campaigns by officials”, denounced the Venezuelan León Hernández of the UCAB.
Argelia Perozo, also a professor at UCAB, pointed out that in this type of country legislation is established “that disadvantages freedom of expression, promotes censorship and even attacks the external support of independent media.”
Other countries such as the United States have risen in the ranking, which is now in position seven, in part due to the changes in the “political processes” that these countries are experiencing, according to Carlos Jornet of the IAPA, and what it means in this case ” one of the great problems for the United States.
The United States at the time of Donald Trump “was lower in the ranking for stigmatization issues, it is still not very high and according to reports there are still many problems with attacks against journalists in protests and many temporary detentions of journalists to collect data” , he pointed.
Jornet also noted that there are countries like Mexico, number 17 in the ranking, “with good data apparently in terms of government control of the media,” but it is the country “with the highest degree in the dimension of violence.”
The two best rated countries in the ranking and that show “full freedom of expression” are Canada and Jamaica and between the first place (Canada) and the last (Nicaragua) there is a gap of 70.91 points, which reflects the ” very low level” in which the Central American country has been located.
