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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

HRW reports vs. Freedom House - a more accurate list

Commenter Al has put together a table of how many reports Human Rights Watch has issued for each country, which should be a more accurate measure of how much time they spend on each country than the Google method I had used.

Using his numbers, the worldwide correlation between the amount of effort HRW puts into countries versus the Freedom House score of the same countries is still a very weak 0.21. (One would expect that number to be well above 0.50.)

The most disproportionate attention is paid to the US (210/4), UK (33/2), Indonesia (88/5), Israel (39/3), Serbia, India, Croatia, Chile and Canada.

The countries with severe human rights issues that are all but ignored by HRW are Laos, Brunei, Oman, and Qatar, each with zero HRW reports. Countries with the worst Freedom House scores of 13 or 14 that had the least reports are Equatorial Guinea (2), Turkmenistan (4), Belarus (4), Eritea (5)  and North Korea (6).

For your edification, here's the entire list I put together so you can have fun number-crunching as well (and perhaps coming up with a better formula than I did to rank them; perhaps separate lists for "not free" countries and "free" countries:)

Country
HRW Reports
Freedom House score
Laos 0 13
Brunei Darussalam 0 11
Oman 0 11
Qatar 0 11
Fiji 0 10
Maldives 0 7
Solomon Islands 0 7
Tonga 0 6
Antigua and Barbuda 0 5
Montenegro 0 5
Mongolia 0 4
Samoa 0 4
Trinidad and Tobago 0 4
Vanuatu 0 4
Grenada 0 3
Monaco 0 3
Taiwan 0 3
Andorra 0 2
Bahamas 0 2
Barbados 0 2
Cyprus 0 2
Finland 0 2
Iceland 0 2
Kiribati 0 2
Liechtenstein 0 2
Lithuania 0 2
Malta 0 2
Marshall Islands 0 2
Nauru 0 2
New Zealand 0 2
Norway 0 2
Palau 0 2
Portugal 0 2
Saint Kitts and Nevis 0 2
Saint Lucia 0 2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 0 2
San Marino 0 2
Slovenia 0 2
Tuvalu 0 2
Uruguay 0 2
Swaziland 1 12
Congo (Brazzaville) 1 11
Gambia 1 10
Madagascar 1 10
Equatorial Guinea 2 14
Moldova 1 7
Djibouti 2 11
Gabon 2 11
Paraguay 1 6
Seychelles 1 6
Armenia 2 10
Niger 2 9
Guyana 1 5
Burkina Faso 2 8
Guinea-Bissau 2 8
Turkmenistan 4 14
Belarus 4 13
Central African Republic 3 10
Comoros 2 7
Suriname 1 4
Cameroon 4 12
Singapore 3 9
Eritrea 5 14
Mauritania 4 11
Lesotho 2 6
Nicaragua 3 8
North Korea 6 14
Bahrain 5 11
Bhutan 4 9
Malawi 3 7
Papua New Guinea 3 7
Belize 1 3
Italy 1 3
Latvia 1 3
Panama 1 3
Togo 5 9
Mozambique 4 7
Kazakhstan 7 11
Kyrgyzstan 7 11
United Arab Emirates 7 11
Honduras 5 8
Botswana 3 5
Mali 3 5
Libya 10 14
Bolivia 4 6
Ecuador 4 6
Azerbaijan 10 11
Tanzania and Zanzibar 5 6
Jamaica 4 5
Benin 3 4
Namibia 3 4
Cape Verde 1 2
Costa Rica 1 2
Denmark 1 2
Switzerland 1 2
Tunisia 12 12
Guinea 10 10
Venezuela 9 9
Cuba 12 11
Yemen 12 11
Cote d'Ivoire 15 13
Syria 15 13
Kuwait 10 9
Tajikistan 13 11
Somalia 17 14
Algeria 14 11
Macedonia 7 6
Jordan 15 11
Zambia 10 7
Vietnam 19 12
Saudi Arabia 21 13
Ukraine 7 5
Albania 9 6
Malaysia 13 8
Morocco/Western Sahara 15 9
Chad 23 13
Burma 25 14
Angola 20 11
Cambodia 20 11
Senegal 10 6
Argentina 6 4
Japan 4 3
Austria 2 2
Estonia 2 2
Ireland 2 2
Sweden 2 2
Haiti 18 9
Thailand 18 9
Iran 25 12
Bangladesh 14 7
Dominican Republic 7 4
Ethiopia 26 12
Guatemala 19 9
East Timor 15 7
Uzbekistan 33 14
Zimbabwe 28 12
Lebanon 18 8
Nepal 18 8
Philippines 13 6
Georgia 19 8
Rwanda 28 11
Sierra Leone 14 6
Burundi 27 10
Sri Lanka 24 9
South Korea 6 3
Netherlands 3 2
Slovak Republic 3 2
Peru 13 5
Bulgaria 10 4
Pakistan 28 9
Ghana 7 3
Liberia 22 7
Romania 11 4
El Salvador 15 5
Uganda 31 9
Democratic Republic of Congo 43 12
Belgium 4 2
Hungary 4 2
Poland 4 2
Sudan 58 14
Egypt 46 11
Brazil 14 4
Kenya 29 7
China and Tibet 59 13
Colombia 30 7
Czech Republic & Former Czechoslovakia 5 2
Afghanistan 56 12
Nigeria 38 8
Greece 11 3
Bosnia and Herzegovina 36 7
Germany 6 2
Russia 61 11
Iraq 64 11
Mexico 28 5
Australia 7 2
France 7 2
Turkey 44 6
Spain 9 2
South Africa 29 4
Canada 10 2
Chile 10 2
Croatia 21 3
India 53 5
Serbia 50 4
Israel 39 3
Indonesia 88 5
United Kingdom 33 2
United States 210 4