Russia Fares Badly in Press Freedom Rankings

The countries with the highest levels of press freedom are Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands. This conclusion was reached by the Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders) charity, which today published a press freedom index on its website. The US was ranked 17th in the list.

Russia was placed 121st in the list, 3 places above Belarus and 15 places above Turkmenistan. However, it languishes behind most other former Soviet countries. Tajikistan was ranked 86th, Kyrgyzstan 98th, Azerbaijan 101st, Ukraine 112th, Kazakhstan 116th, and Uzbekistan 120th. Armenia, Georgia and the Baltic states were not included in the list as the organisation lacked reliable information on these countries. 139 countries were included in the index.