Bangladesh slides 3 spots to 152nd

World press freedom index: Bangladesh slides 3 spots to 152nd

Bangladesh has slipped down three places to 152nd on the World Press Freedom Index this year, losing some of last year’s gains.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, published the index yesterday, putting Bangladesh’s score at 33.05.

Last year, Bangladesh’s score increased to 33.71 from 27.64 a year earlier. The jump helped Bangladesh climb an unprecedented 16 places in last year’s index.

The index is based on a score ranging from zero to 100 that is assigned to each country or territory, with 100 being the best possible score, or the highest possible level of press freedom, and zero the worst.

This score is calculated on the basis of a tally of abuses against media and journalists in connection with their work and a qualitative analysis of the situation in each country.

Depending on their scores, countries are classified in a range between “good” and “very serious”.

Bangladesh is classified as “very serious”, a category for countries with a score between zero and 40.

To determine a nation’s press freedom ranking, its performance is analysed through five distinct lenses: political climate, legislative structures, economic pressures, social dynamics, and physical security.

Bangladesh performed poorer in economic, legal, and social indicators this year, which dragged its score down again.

In South Asia, Bangladesh is still ahead of Pakistan and India in ranking, but only by one and five notches respectively.

Nepal is 65 places ahead of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka 18, and Bhutan two.

About the Asia-Pacific, RSF said in its report, “It is one of the most repressive regions in the world – and the situation continues to deteriorate.

“On paper, virtually every country in the region recognises press freedom. In practice, the principle is systematically violated.”

Globally, for the first time in a quarter of a century, the overall average score of all the countries assessed has never been so low, said RSF.

In over half of the world’s countries and territories (52.2 percent), the state of press freedom is categorised as “difficult” or “very serious”.

The “very serious” category was a small minority (13.7 percent) in 2002, when 20 percent of the global population lived in a country where the state of press freedom was categorised as “good”.

Twenty-five years later, less than 1 percent of the world’s population lives in a country that falls under the “good” category, the index showed.