Hamas earning its bad Freedom House score

In the annual Freedom House report on how free various countries and territories are, Gaza received one of the worst rankings - 6 for political rights and 6 for civil liberties (7 is the worst.) It did beat out Syria, though, which was scored 7 and 7.

Hamas seems hell-bent on hitting the Syrian rankings, though, as Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas started a new campaign of arresting journalists.

Hamas detained one radio journalist's family in order to get him to come to security headquarters this morning so they could arrest him.

Two others were arrested yesterday, including the managing director of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. Yet two mores were detained on Sunday.

The West Bank under the PA was not much better than Hamas, with scores of 6 and 5.


Israel was ranked the only free country in the Middle East, with scores of 1 and 2.