Georgia Tops Media Freedom Index among Eastern Partnership Countries

EU Neighborhood Info Center

Georgia has the highest degree of media freedom among the Eastern Partnership countries, according to a survey presented at a panel on 'Threats for media freedom in the Eastern Partnership area' at the Civil Society Forum in Chisinau last Friday.

 

The Media Freedom Index in Eastern Partnership countries was conducted under a project initiated by one of the Working Groups (WG) of the Forum (WG 1, subgroup ‘Media’) and funded by the EU. Moldova comes second on the list, followed by Armenia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Belarus has the lowest ranking (with 414 points compared to Georgia’s 1222).

 

The survey, which covers the period from March to June this year, assessed only the level of freedom of speech and not the quality of journalism in partner countries. The criteria used in the evaluation are:  

•  The political context (the level of rights and freedoms for media granted by the constitution);

• The actual practice (restrictions of media freedom) including: attacks, threats and detentions prosecutions

• access to the information

• censorship and self-censorship

• Access to broadcasting;

• Access to the Internet.

The project was implemented by Internews Ukraine in cooperation with leading media NGOs from other partner countries.