Puente Democrático

The Observatory of dictatorships is an initiative by Project Puente Democratico at CADAL with the following objectives:

a) To give information from prestigious international organizations on the situation of human rights in the countries more repressive of democratic freedoms;

b) To give information and analysis on the different countries' statements, especially those from Latin America , regarding the Universal Periodic Review of a dictatorship at the UN Human Rights Council;

c) To monitor the international relations of Latin America with the countries ruled by dictatorships;

d) To make a directory of international organization of human rights, democratic referents and independent journalists living in the countries ruled by dictatorships and on exile.

Methodology

The countries considered by this Observatory to be dictatorships correspond to the worst qualified as Not Free by Freedom House, according to Freedom in the World by that organization.

Freedom House's Freedom in the World gives an annual report since 1972 on the global state of freedom, taking into account a great specter of countries. The variables used for its elaboration are: a) political rights and b) civic liberties. As it happens, these coincide with the variables used by Robert Dahl (1989) in his paper on democracy or poliarchy – public debate and participation.

Every country can receive a qualification of 1 to 7, with 1 as the best possible scenario and 7, the worst. Those countries with a number between 1 and 2.5 are considered Free, between 3 to 5 as Partially Free and between 5.5 and 7 as Not Free. These last countries do not elect their representatives through free and competitive elections, opposition to the regime is forbidden and repressed, they suffer restrictions to basic democratic liberties – like freedom of expression, association and reunion – and generally are characterized by high levels of internal violence.

The Observatory of dictatorships includes the countries considered by Freedom in the World as Not Free, qualified between 6.5 and 7.

Dictatorships

• Saudi Arabia
• Belarús
• North Korea
• Ivory Coast
• Cuba
• Chad
• China
• Eritrea
• Equatorial Guinea
• Laos
• Libya
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Syria
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Turkmenistán
• Uzbekistán