Talk:Freedom House

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Contents 1 "American-based" reiterations 2 Explinations of my changes 3 2005 or 2006? 4 POV dispute 5 Grammar 6 POV 7 Freedom House is biased towards America (titled by Skinnyweed, written by User:212.129.107.21) 8 American principles 9 Comparison map 10 source POV 11 us information agency 12 Credibility 13 possible islamophobic discrimination 14 Possibe moron-writers :) 15 NPOV/Incoherence 16 Since when has 'Freedom in the World' been published, since 1978 or since 1973? 17 Credibility Undermined 18 Frank Calzón 19 Recently reverted edits 20 Criticism section 21 Malaysia has no electoral democracy? 22 Terrorfileonline 23 Russia is not an electoral democracy?? 24 Copyediting 25 Terrorfileonline 26 New material on Cuban activities by FH

[edit] "American-based" reiterations

I'm only three paragraphs i--83.131.138.135 03:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)nto the article, yet I've already read three separate times that Freedom House is largely American based. How many times do we have to reiterate this? It's redundant, and possibly pov - I feel like somebody is trying to imply that Freedom House is a shill for American interests. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.55.80.49 (talk • contribs).

Something I think that can be added, according to http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=2 : "Our diverse Board of Trustees is united in the view that American leadership in international affairs is essential to the cause of human rights and freedom". You can take this as a starting point to make your own idea of Freedom House.

The Criticisms section is not. It refutes and gives the Freedom House the last word for every critique. I do not have the knowledge to fix this, so I will just complain.

Anon user -- you are not using facts and you have no clue whatsoever how ludicrous your POV edits are. "Turkey is also given more credit as a democracy than it deserves." Who the *hell* are you to judge how much credit it deserves? That's not a fact, that's just your own opinion.

When using the phrase "some believe" you have to be prepared to cite specific references, otherwise it's just a weasel expression to push your own POV. And you have to separate facts from opinions, which you have been unable to do.

And "western European" is clearly used by Freedom House with its political sense, not its geographical. Aka the countries of the once-western bloc. Aris Katsaris 14:47, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

ok im a new user and did not read the guide. anyway if i want to point out that this organization is biased how do i say it? or you can say it for me. i think it is ridiculus that they give US full points despite the obvious recent problems. and i just compared turkey with other countries, and they have given turkey a lot more credit considering their military intervenes with election as well as turkey not even recognizing the existance of a kurdish people (20%) of population in turkey. clearly this is a biased organizaion. i dont need sources to prove it, logic is enough.

You can point that some feel that the organization is biased, but you have to give sources for that: which are the people that so feel it? Wikipedia is not meant just a place to voice *your* (or mine opinion) -- it's a place to detail facts. If there's a significant amount of people sharing your opinion, you can do the research and discover them. Then we can reference the objections to Freedomhouse alongside a link to examples of these objections.

You talk about the military interventions, and yet don't you see that they are rating Turkey as *partly* free? Do you see any other country that's actually *better* than Turkey being rated as lower? Don't you know how many countries don't just have military interference but rather full-fledged dictatorships?

Yeah, Turkey doesn't accept the existence of the Kurdish nation, it calls them Mountain Turks instead. But it nonetheless allows them to vote, and it allows them to use their language. That's a large extent of political and civil rights which is more than many minorities have worldwide. And again Turkey is rated as only "partly free".

You think it's ridiculous they give US full points: Tough -- they explain the methodology they are using in their site. The "civil rights abuses" you mention in a handful of districts in the USA aren't enough to diminish its grade -- why do you feel they should be? Have you *seen* what other nations are like? For example, in Greece which gets a 1/2 (as opposed to the 1/1 of the USA), do you know that books can be banned because they insulted the state religion? Can you imagine that thing happening in the USA?

Your grievances about the Freedomhouse's supposed bias in favour of USA are themselves parochial. Yeah, bad things happen in the USA. But you have no reason to feel they are happening to such an extent that it should be downgraded. Aris Katsaris 15:57, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And yeah "clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world" is indeed POV, which is why we are quoting what the source is, namely Freedomhouse itself. We are *saying* that's their own description for themselves. If you want, we can detail comments that other organizations or celebrities have for Freedomhouse also, again describing who's the one who held these opinions. But not your personal objections. Aris Katsaris 16:06, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the abuses in US happened in a handful of districts i agree. but considering US electoral system that handful of problems changed the entire outcome of the elections. therefore using their own methodology.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES CHECKLIST Political Rights Checklist A. Electoral Process 1. Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair elections? 2. Are the legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3. Are there fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, fair polling, and honest tabulation of ballots?

you cannot say that the election is fair. if people are being barred from voting or their ballots are being disproportionatly cancelled. if election is not fair and this unfairness is actually affecting the outcome of presidency then you cannot say america is a perfect 1/1 democracy. im not suggesting putting it with n korea but its definitly NOT 1/1. and its a clear bias.

If it's not 1/1 what is it then? Would you put it at 2/1, Since your objections mainly concern the political rights? That's the same level as Argentina where political rights are concerned. Read the article on Argentina: http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/countryratings/argentina.htm and see whether you feel the situation there is as good or as bad as in the USA.

its not fair for me to wait for somebody famous to point out FH 's flaw otherwise i cannot comment on their bias. what if no one sais anything. its still a clear flaw. any suggestion on this point?

You can prove discrepancies between claims they make and factual truth. But you can't just argue "They should have rated US lower". Why? Because you say so? And how lower should they have rated? Argentina level at 2? Bolivia level at 3 where the elected president had to flee out of the country? Where exactly should they have put it? It's NOT a "clear flaw" when there's dispute about whether the flaw exists or not. Aris Katsaris 17:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

turkey cannot be categorized as western europe and hungary east, because FH says countries are categorized by REGION not political or military alliances. if thats the case taiwan should also be in western europe.... do you agree?

Nonsense. Western Europe had a certain political and historical meaning even though it. FH often categorizes regions by historical criteria -- even if geographically it doesn't make much sense. For example check out how in http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/countries.htm#dropdown they even have Kyrgystan in the "Central and Eastern Europe" category. Why that? Because they see the world from the political perspective, and by "Central and Eastern Europe" they in reality mean the post-communist countries in Europe as well as the break-up nations of the Soviet Union. They group them together because they see the world from its political perspective.

But now that you mentioned it *that* may be a good thing to mention about Freedomhouse, the way it groups nations. Give me a min and I'll add it in. Aris Katsaris 17:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

im sure you are aware that US gov. tries to push turkey into the EU. a good way to this is by using think tanks like FH, suggesting here and there turkey is western europe.

EU isn't as naive as that. Greece is also labelled as Western Europe, and yet geographically it's in the Southeast instead. *Cyprus* is labelled as Western Europe, and it's even further to the East. That's because they are using the political definition of Western Europe -- meaning the European nations that weren't in the Soviet sphere of influence. Aris Katsaris 17:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the article is looking better now ( i like the judged part and that you removed the word fully democratic) to answer your question yes US should be 2. the difference between me an u is you compare it to other countries, whereas i compare these ratings with theories of democracy (which the main pillar is unversal sufferage) once this pillar is messed with, in my book its pretty far from a perfect score. im not talking about something little here, im talking about changing the outcome of who would be the country's leader!

and its irrelevant what argentina does, they could move them up another notch as well if you dont want the US to be in the same category. the same argument goes for turkey as well, based on their behavior in comparison with theory of human rights.

In a grading system you *have* to compare it to other countries. In a 10-point or a 20-point system, USA might very well get a 2 rather than 1 in its political ratings. In the 7-point system it simply *doesn't( according to Freedomhouse's criteria. That it simply irks you that this is the case isn't a factual disagreement: you simply dislike the entirety of the system Freedomhouse is using. You claim the system is "biased"? Biased in favour of what? Biased in favour of Argentina, which is rated at 2 -- should we downgrade it to make room for the much more democratic USA? Biased in favour of Bolivia, which is rated at 3 and we should downgrade it to make room for Argentina? Should we also downgrade Bosnia which is rated at 4? But then what about Burundi? We should *also* downgrade it.

That you want more points in the scale isn't a real disagreement.

as for it being in west europe it cannot be cultural reasons as you claim in the article, cannot be historical, because anatolia was always considered asia for thousands of years since alexander the great and before. only recently they are making it look like w europe. the reason can only be military and political alliance. if this is their basis then why israel is placed in the middle east?) i dont agree cyprus to be in western europe as well. tajikistan is in Asia, if FH wants to group cis countries together then it can make a separate category called cis. which brings me back to my previous argument that they are innacurate with definitions.

Turkey was part of NATO during the Cold War. Israel wasn't, and no part of it was in Europe. Western Europe was used as the opposite of Eastern Europe -- aka the American sphere of influence as opposed to the Soviet Sphere of influence. Aris Katsaris 18:12, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

by the way i just checked their website now while writing this and all the regions and countires were changed?!!! turkey was in the middle east now ... wats that about?!

I beg your pardon? No, go here: http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/countries.htm -- Turkey is still placed at Western Europe.

go to yahoo, write freedom house, then click on the "FH country rating" on the left in the blue column you will see.

by the way, if their system "has" to give US 1/1 then their system is biased. which means FH methodology is biased.

In what way are they biased, you still haven't shown it. Aris Katsaris 02:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

in a country that the president is not fairly chosen, voters are barred or discounted, the main pillar of democracy is broken, therefore it cannot be an ideal democracy. you cannot convince any intelligent person that it still is an ideal democracy. 2+2=4. so dont bother replying and talking about bolivia, argentina. it is up to them to rectify their methods (that produce biased results) not up to me to give them suggestion . all i know is what democracy means, and what US status quo is.

Voters are "barred or discounted" -- because you say so? And was it done *against* the election laws that these voters were barred or discounted? As far as I know, no it wasn't. Yes, you may very well know what democracy means, and you may be better informed about the US -- but you still haven't shown a single factual inaccuracy or omission in Freedomhouse. And I definitely don't think you know the meaning of rating systems. A country doesn't need to be *perfect* in order to get a 1. It simply has to rate better than 2. Aris Katsaris 02:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

i cannot believe you think that discounting votes that actually changed the outcome of the presidency is a NOT major prolem deserving a demerit point. you said before who the "hell" am i to decide which country is what. well now i say who the hell is "FH" to decide that! just because they are backed with money and have a website does not make them more "right" "fair" or "intelligent". they are clearly wrong and biased. at least i understand what makes and does not make a democracy.

FH is an organization notable enough to be described in article. The article doesn't *claim* as a fact that they are either right or fair or intelligent. It's you who wanted to claim the opposite, pushing your ludicrous POV version as if it was fact. Aris Katsaris 02:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

and again, im tired or repeating myself, if they want nato countries together (they must say NATO) not western europe, its misleading (biased). get it???????? same goes with former soviet union. your continiuous naggin is not going to change world geography. the word region is geographic, does not define military alliances.

No. "Biased" is not even a near-synonym for "misleading". You don't know the meaning of the words -- read a dictionary. "West Europe" did have a political meaning for decades and decades no matter how much you might like it to be differently. Aris Katsaris 02:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

im not bothering with this article anymore, its not important enough for my time.

but think about what you are saying for your own sake. the brainwashing by media, government and so called "think tanks" is hindering you from thinking clearly.

Which media, pray tell? Which government? Do you even know what country I'm from? Aris Katsaris 02:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Where is Brazil? (Rating PF2, CL2, Free) Stabuh

---

The article does not address the most important issue of all, that is — what procedure and criteria are they using to get those numbers.

If the procedure is published, it should be in the article in details, and document how exactly did they reach all the suspicious results. Is the procedure biased itself or has it been not fully followed in a few cases ?

If it's not, then we should plainly say that they give whatever scores the wish, and the numbers should not be considered to represent anything more than the staff's impressions. Taw 02:19, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Cute, they've published something on their methodology http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/methodology.htm

Unfortunately it only tell part of the story. A lot of criteria, especially in the "civil liberties", are open to many interpretations:

• "Are there fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, [...]" (some obvious questions: gerrymandering, campaign funding by either the state or the economic oligarchy)
• "Are the people’s political choices free from domination by [...] economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?" (campaign funding, free media)
• "Do freely elected representatives determine the policies of the government?" (what about the EU ? and about the central banks, supreme courts, the council of guardians)
• "Is the government free from pervasive corruption?" (does funding of political parties by big corporations constitute pervasive corruption ?)
• "Is the government accountable to the electorate between elections, and does it operate with openness and transparency?" (what are the criteria for accountability, openness and transparency ? How many countries make the government accountable except for the elections ?)
• "Are there personal social freedoms, including gender equality, [...]" (what are the criteria for "gender equality" ?)
• "Is the population treated equally under the law?" (under letter of law or in practice ? For exmaple, what about situation of African Americans ?)
• "Is there equality of opportunity and the absence of economic exploitation?" (it's very interesting what are their criteria for "absence of economic exploitation")

Taw 02:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Explinations of my changes

First, I removed comments about who chaired Freedom House's board when in the first paragraph and moved it to the paragraph about the board under organization. It seemed redundant to mention that Peter Ackerman was the chairman of the Freedom House Board three seperate times in the article.

I should introduce myself. My ID is SESlabaugh. My last update to this (Freedom House) article was inadvertently made as 12.203.201.218 on "Revision as of 09:33, 6 January 2006". I was logged on at that time as SESlabaugh under the mozilla browser tab where my edits were located, while another tab didn't reflect a login. When I saved my changes it was attributed to the IP addy instead my ID. Some sort of mozilla bug I suppose. (I am aware that wikipedia, according to the media, is requiring Logon id's for edits.) It is a shame that you have had to repeat some/many of my research and edits, as you have already shown above. I had way too many hours invested in this article, validating my changes against their web site. Unfortunately, Ryan Utt blithely reinstated the article to the point before my changes were made, without so much as checking the validity of a single fact or edit.

I found the previous version (09:33, 6 January 2006) of the article highly un-neutral and very poorly structured - it still could benefit from improvements in these areas. When I first encountered the article, I was so amazed at these flaws that my first reaction was to re-write the whole thing and throw out some of the opinions for a more NPOV, but, a) didn't want to take the time just then, and, more importantly, b) didn't want to get into the middle of what might be a war over POV with prior authors. --SESlabaugh 10:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I changed the description of how Freedom House describes its board to reflect how Freedom House describes its board on its website. As that description is attributed to Freedom House, it should reflect what Freedom House says.

Another one of my changes also (except that Mark Porter is not on the board anymore), but thanks anyway.  :-) --SESlabaugh 10:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed two cases of "citation needed"... one in the history of Freedom House (the list provided there is a fairly standard list of Freedom House's past achievements, cited in several places, and formarly listed on Freedom House's webpage. It doesn't appear to be there anymore, but I assume that isn't because they changed their mind about what happened. As the paragraph begins with "Freedom House says of itself" it would give the appearance that the whole paragraph is taken from Freedom House sources.) and the other in the "Other Activities" section (The fact that Freedom House does things other than write reports is clear from their webpage, and implied in other sections of the article. I verified that the claim was correct on their website.)

More of my changes.  :-) --SESlabaugh 10:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -ElizaZ

I thought that wikipedia was supposed to have a neutral point of view, but sadly this article needs a lot of work in that area. I realize that there is a great degree of politicalization in society these days, but to let it into articles here instead of a blog somewhere, just isn't right. If this article is someone's political opinion "baby", maybe it should be renamed to reflect that fact or moved to a blog. --SESlabaugh 10:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2005 or 2006?

Please see my question posted here and reply if able. =J //Big Adamsky 19:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I replied--Eviliza

[edit] POV dispute

This article needs need some collaboration to become neutral, though collaboration at this point (see edit history) seems difficult. BruceHallman 22:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

This article is written with a POV slant matching the Freedom House 'Public Relations', which is not a neutral view. The article should be written neutrally. BruceHallman 14:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Please give an example.Ultramarine 15:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Look at the recent edit history, regarding 'think tank' 'mostly conservative' 'Inc.', etc.. Relegating neutral descriptions to a 'critics' section conveys that the POV of Freedom House owns the article and all else, even if neutrally worded, is criticism. BruceHallman 18:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

That is the view of the critics. What evidence do you present that they are mostly conservative? Some obscure website stating this without explanation or citing very old material is not very reliable sources.Ultramarine 18:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I provided citations, which you dismiss as 'obscure' and 'view of the critics'. I provided a recent citation which you now ignore. You also ignore the 'Inc.' and the 'think tank'. I would rather collaborate about this than argue about this. Are you willing to collaborate? BruceHallman 18:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

What source are you talking about?Ultramarine 18:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

You must have forgotten, I gave sources as footnotes to my edits which you deleted, see the page history. BruceHallman 19:11, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you mean this [1], which I moved to the criticism section. Now that website does not seem a very reliable source, allowing anyone to submit homemade articles. Do you have anything better? Ultramarine 19:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that list or describe Freedom House as a 'think tank'. BruceHallman 19:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The same search gives 19,000 hits for that "Greenpeace" and "think thank". Is Greenpeace a think thank? Anyhow, give specific sources.Ultramarine 19:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The US State Department calls Freedom House a 'think tank'. BruceHallman 19:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Source? Ultramarine 19:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

One source is the US State Department as I wrote 19:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC). It appears mid page on the Google search link I gave you 19:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC) BruceHallman 20:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find it, thus unverifiable. Please give direct link.Ultramarine 20:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The link is to a State Department list of "related websites." The page says, "Below are listed, in alphabetical order, links to a number of think tanks and research institutions whose work on all aspects of foreign policy, we at Policy Planning have found particularly useful." Inclusion on that list does not necessarly mean that the State Department thinks Freedom House is a think tank; they could be including them because they are a "research institution". http://www.state.gov/s/p/tt/ Elizaz 21:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

Why is it "Freedom House is a advo..." and not an? Skinnyweed 22:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Leading with an extended quote of Freedom House describing themselves gives undue weight to their self sytled POV. A more encyclopedic approach would be to give more weight to describe Freedom House for what they are, not for what they say they are. BruceHallman 13:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Ultramarine is following some ideological line here rather than attempting to create a factual entry. --Drono 16:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree long quote. Please do not delete sources and corrections. Ultramarine 19:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it is significant to point the 'democracy' Wiki-link to the specific type of democracy that Freedom House advocates. There are other types of democracy that Freedom House does not advocate, and this article is improved if that fact is not obscure. For instance, Freedom House does not advocate for Bioregional democracy, Direct democracy, Demarchy, New Democracy, Soviet democracy or Workplace democracy. BruceHallman 20:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I also think it significant to identify that Freedom House is advocating for a specific ideology. This matters, for reasons including our duty to cleanse Wikipedia of systemic bias. Note, for instance that roughly one half of the population of the World does practice the ideology that Freedom House advocates. BruceHallman 20:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed to liberal democracy. Obviously this is an ideology, but why should this be pointed out in the intro in this article? Should the article about the Red Khmers point out that they tried to promote an ideology, Marxism? What is your source for that more than half of the world's population.

My population estimate comes from a rough estimate of the population of the red areas on their map, most all of Asia and more than half of Africa. BruceHallman 21:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The word 'ideology', or some such, is needed to balance the heavy bias of the word 'nonpartisan'. BruceHallman 21:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Only green nations are liberal democracies. You looking at a map without checking actual population numbers is certainly dubious original research. Again, obviously liberal democracy is an ideology, but why should this be pointed out in the intro in this article? Should the article about the Red Khmers point out that they tried to promote an ideology, Marxism, in the intro? Ultramarine 21:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

A couple of points regarding points of view and recent changes to this article: 1. In response to BruceHallman's point about giving weight to what Freedom House is vs. what they say they are-- this leads to an interesting point about the nature of truth. What Freedom House "is" is to a large degree a matter of opinion. Freedom House sees itself one way. Other parties sees it another way. Neither is necessarly true or false. Nor does there seem to be a general consisance on what Freedom House is. Different sources present radically different views. Freedom House definately has an interest in protraying itself a certian light, but other sources views are influenced by their own biases and points of view as well. It seems like the best way to describe what Freedom House "is" is to provide both what they say that they are in addition to well-sourced views who have a different view on what Freedom House *is*. For the record, of the links I've seen posted in the past couple of days to support critisim or different views of Freedom House, only one seems to be a well-sourced article as opposed to including Freedom House in a large list of groups without discussion of why Freedom House is included, or clear opinion peices. As the nature of Freedom House seems to be hotly debated, it looks like the only fair way to do it is to say that there are several points of view, and provide readers with the ability to easily compare primary sources if they so desire. 2. Regarding the sources of Freedom House's funding, which has been changed back and forth several times: On it's webpage, Freedom House includes copies of the annual reports (http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/23.pdf) which includes a financial statement that lists how much money they get from several broad catagories (government grants, private contributions, etc.) While this isn't a detailed list of what money they are getting for what purpose from where, it is enough to refute the statement that Freedom House does not disclose the source of its funding. I've also deleted the discussion of the 1990 report on where their funding comes from, because frankly a report looking at data that is almost 20 years old is more likely to confuse matters than make them clearer. 63.138.81.98 21:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I used the word 'roughly' regarding population, but my estimate is not far off. What is the population of the PRC, Russia and most of Asia and Africa? BruceHallman 21:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Asking about the Red Khmers is a straw man fallacy. The question is instead about this article. According to my editing judgement, the article needs to somehow acknowledge that the Freedom House is advocating for the politics (or a better word is ideology) of the 'green areas' on that map to prevail over the 'red areas' on that map. Even the name 'Freedom House' is a sort of code language for ideology. Their use of the word 'nonpartisan' is a reference to what, USA nonpartisanship? Certainly, it is not global nonpartisanship. The article clearly has a 'Western' systemic bias. BruceHallman 21:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Both Japan, South Africa, and India are liberal democracies. Liberal democracy is not a "Western" systematic bias.Ultramarine 21:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the article has a strong Liberal democracy bias, another type of systemic bias none-the-less. Editors at Wikipedia have the obligation to try to eliminate such systemic bias. BruceHallman 21:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The fact that almost 2/3rds of their funding comes from government sources is very significant information for readers, and it should be included in the article. BruceHallman 21:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

1. According to their website, about 46% of the world lives in "Free" countries, and the rest live in Not Free or Partly Free country. So your percentage guess based on the map appears to be about right, assuming you want to take Freedom House's word for how countries are divided and which ones are liberal democracies or free or whatever. 2. Nonpartisan is defined as not being associated with an organized political party (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_%28disambiguation%29). As "green area" and "red area" or even "Western Style Democracies" and "Non-Western Style Democracies" are not political parties, than your argument that Freedom House is partisan does not look at the actual definition of the word "nonpartisan" Being a nonpartisan organization does not mean that they don't advocate for things or have specific points of views or ideologies; just that those ideologies and the organization itself are not closely affiliated with any one political party. 63.138.81.98 21:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

1. I agree that the fact that a lot of their funding comes from the government is important and should be included... I just don't have the time right now to do the math and write it up properly. 2. There is a difference between Freedom House having a liberal democracy bias and the article having a liberal democracy bais. I don't see what specific areas in the article are biases of the article as opposed to reporting of Freedom House's biases and opinions. Please clarify. Thanks! 63.138.81.98 22:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, for starters: The first clause of the opening paragraph. Which assumes that the reader shares the USA concept of partisanship when using the word 'non-partisan'. This is an incorrect assumption for a global reader. Similar for the issue of 'non-profit', which in a large part is only relevant to the USA tax code, and worse, is a transparent attempt to imply independence of the influence of money. Just the fact that the source of government funding is deliberately hidden by Freedom House implies that the majority of funding (and therefore influence) behind Freedom House may be (in part) a shell for US State Department interests. Meeting WP:V for such wording will be touchy because of their secrecy, but echoing the slogan 'non-profit and non-partisan' rings too much like propaganda for use in an encyclopedia. BruceHallman 15:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I also have problems with the way the article generalizes about non governmental organizations. BruceHallman 15:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Both the words non-partisan and non-profit have a definition. According to dictionary.com: non-profit="Not seeking or producing a profit or profits"; non-partisan="Based on, influenced by, affiliated with, or supporting the interests or policies of no single political party." These are concepts and words that are not limited to the United States, but rather to any country that has organizations that seek financial profit or political parties. True, there are countries that do not have political parties, but since Freedom House is located in the United States it provides a context for the type of organization it is. By contrast, neo-conservatism is defined as: "An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism that arose in opposition to the perceived liberalism of the 1960s." This is clearly a US, or at least Western, term for a political ideology... if Freedom House can not be described as "non-partisan" and "non-profit" because those terms have roots in Western political systems, then it definately can not be described as "neoconservative" for the same reason. Non-partisan and non-profit are words with specific definitions. As I have not heard you claim that Freedom House seeks finanical profit or officially affiliates itself with a specific political party, I do not feel that the use of those words, expecially in quotes, is a problem. Re: obscuring funding sources: Please provide an example of an organization that provides the level of detailed funding information you are looking for from Freedom House. I do not believe that it is general practice to provide that level of detail about one's funding sources that you seem to want about Freedom House. Re: What areas do you feel generalize about non-governmental organizations?

Thanks! 63.138.81.98 17:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Revisions to the leadoff clause can fix the problem I hope. I think the article must read as if written from a neutral global perspective, not a USA perspective. BruceHallman 18:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom House is biased towards America (titled by Skinnyweed, written by User:212.129.107.21)

Misleadingly named Freedom House is an organization tasked with promotion of US interests and is widely known as a CIA front. The organization that is funded entirely by government (directly and through tax deductible "donations"), in this case the government of nation with poor human rights record on its own, with little respect for individual freedoms, with more citizens behind bars than in Communist China, which has not been a democracy for most of its history (not until 1960s) and which is engaged in wars of aggression abroad and occupation of other countries, such an organization, by definition, cannot possibly compile an impartial rating of how free or unfree are other societies are. Freedom House is a policy tool, not an objective international forum or organization capable of producing such sort of evaluations or ratings. It is ridiculous to include Freedom House (and link thereto) and its phony rating in the Wikipedia on par with (respected) UN Human Development index or other such measurable indexes. The article should either removed or modified to reflect the fact that Freedom House is not an independent international organization but a foreign policy tool producing bogus ratings of metaphysical substance. User:212.129.107.21

[edit] American principles

I temporarily removed the "American principles and interests" line that has been going back and forth lately. Perhaps the proponents could indicate what is specifically American about these here in the Talk page first, as opposed to the common values of Western liberal democracies. I'm not rejecting the concept, especially since it is an American based and funded group, but as a Canadian I always hate to see "American" used when a more general word is just as appropriate! - David Oberst 19:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I support a tone down, changing the clause to 'generally associated with United States principles and interests ', though this clause does appear to meet WP:V, WP:NPOV AND WP:NOR. This analysis from the Heritage Foundation identifies a linkage: "Governments considered politically free by Freedom House's annual publication, Freedom in the World, are more likely to support U.S. positions on non-consensus votes in the General Assembly than less free countries." BruceHallman 15:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup, if they are willing to equate freedom and "supporting U.S. positions" explicitly like that, the phrase is fully justified. - David Oberst 15:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the clause helps convey the point that 'freedom' as defined by Freedom House is a type of 'freedom' which they advocate. The article, to be neutral (and to avoid systemic bias), should carefully not make the passive assumption that the Freedom House definition of 'freedom' is a universal definition. BruceHallman 16:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

That is not how they describe themselves. Could be in criticisms, with a reliable source.Ultramarine 18:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't notice that Bruce's quote was from a Heritage Foundation analysis, not Freedom House itself using the voting patterns as part of the freedom levels measurement. I take back my support for the wording :). - David Oberst 18:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Heritage Foundation is commonly sympathetic with Freedom House, so it is a big stretch to call their analysis of Freedom House a criticism. BruceHallman 19:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Ultramarine wrote That is not how they describe themselves. Please explain why that is a relevant criteria? This is not a Freedom House vanity article and how Freedom House 'describes themselves' is hardly neutral. BruceHallman 19:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Should we state that Cuba is murderous dictatorship in the intro because someone thinks so? Such views belong in a criticism section. Ultramarine 19:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please answer my question directly. Your straw man fallacy falls short. BruceHallman 19:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

That is my answer. To clarify, the intro is not the place for criticism from one side.Ultramarine 19:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I dispute that the clause generally associated with United States principles and interests is a criticism. Rather, it is a neutral description which meets WP:V, WP:NPOV AND WP:NOR. BruceHallman 20:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Cato is an ideological opponent from the far right. They, like many libertarians, want the US to isolate itself.Ultramarine 20:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the citation was from the Heritage Founcation, not the Cato Institute. Your logic appears diversionary and evasive. BruceHallman 20:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I missed that. Regardless, Freedom House would object to that description. They have often strongly criticzed for example American allies.Ultramarine 20:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You believe that Freedom House would object, but your belief seems to be both wrong and to be speculation, original research. My clause: generally associated with United States principles and interests is not original research. BruceHallman 13:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is how it describes itself "Freedom House has been a vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of dictatorships of the far left and the far right. Since its founding, Freedom House has vigorously opposed tyranny including dictatorships in Latin America, apartheid in South Africa, and Soviet Communism and domination of Eastern and Central Europe, and religiously-based totalitarian regimes including Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia." Why should your prefered text be in the intro and not this? Again, should we state that Cuba is murderous dictatorship in the intro because someone thinks so? Ultramarine 13:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Ultramarine refused before to answer my question of: Why should how they describe themselves be considered a relevant criteria? Will you answer that question now? Our goal is a neutral description, and the subjects of articles cannot be presumed to neutrally describe themselves. BruceHallman 15:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I would say that a neutral description of Cuba is a dictatorship that has repressed dissidents. Should that be in the intro or in the criticism section? Ultramarine 15:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

When did this discussion become about Cuba? BruceHallman 16:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Because there seem to be a double standard.Ultramarine 16:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

If the intent of the phrase "generally associated with United States principles and interests" is something like "generally associated with the mainstream conceptions of freedom and democracy in the west", then "United States" is too specific. If it is "generally associated with the United States as distinct from...", then a lot more justification would have to be provided, and I doubt it would make the grade for intro paragraphs in any case. Bruce seems to have his causality backwards - the Heritage paper is looking at foreign support of the US and noting the correlation between that and their FH rankings - it is not analyzing Freedom House and finding its policies designed to correspond to US interests specifically. They may of course be, but this isn't a useful cite to argue that. If Heritage had noted a link between the level of Big Mac consumption and alignment with US interests, it wouldn't make the case that McDonalds was promoting recipes "generally associated with United States principles and interests. - David Oberst 16:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not arguing 'causality' but am simply trying to capture and express the 'general association' of interests, which I think is very important to covey to the readers of the article. A big reason this is important is because Wikipedia editors have the duty to edit articles to avoid systemic bias, in this case the the systemic bias of 'the west' as you call it. BruceHallman 16:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Oberst.Ultramarine 16:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I used "west" deliberately as a cliche, larger term than American, not as proposed wording or some sort of "western" bias. Even if you convince folks here that a qualifier is necessary, it would still be necessary to justify why "United States" as opposed to something more inclusive. Also, the use of "liberal democracy" in the sentence already begins to provide context as to what they are "promoting". - David Oberst 16:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have several points regarding the recent discussion. 1) I believe that BruceHallman's statement that the phrase "generally assocatied with the United State's princples and interests" conforms to WP:V, WP:NPOV AND WP:NOR is incorrect. First, I believe that the Heritage foundation source he uses, as pointed out by David Oberst, is not being interperted correctly. Simply because countries that are rated "free" by Freedom House are generally more supportive of United States interests does not mean that Freedom House's rating are generally associated with United State's intersts. After all, the long-time US ally Saudi Arabia is treated very harshly by Freedom House. The summary of the Heritage foundation report does not accurately reflect the assertions in the report-- which in fact states the opposite, "As nations become freer, both politically and economically, the policies that they consider to be in their interests become more closely aligned with policies championed by the U.S.--not because they are U.S. policies, but because they are policies consistent with the interests of free societies." This means that the verification for that statement is not valid. In addition, even if it were quoted accurately, the Heritage Foundations stated goal is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies;" they are not a neutral source. (Indeed, most of the sources for this artical are not neutral sources but are sources with strong bias one way or the other.) Citing other's opinions, while they are verifiable, does not make them neutral.

2) BruceHallman is correct, however, in questioning Ultramarine's suggestion that the test of if something is valid is if it reflects how Freedom House describes itself. Freedom House itself is not a neutral source, and while they may be a good source for some parts of the article (such as when they were founded or who the chairman of their board is) descriptions of their ideology, goals, etc. should probably be cited as "Freedom House's states" etc. Simply because Freedom House doesn't describe itself a certian way doesn't necessarly mean that it isn't valid.

3) Saying that Freedom House is "generally associated with US interests" isn't necessarly a critisim; however, it is not a statement of fact, either. Merely the fact that it has been debated so much on this talk page indicates that it is not a verifiable fact, but rather a matter of some contention. I will outline how I think the article could be better constructed to include the differing opinions of Freedom House in the next bullet point, but I think that the introduction should probably be saved for things that are clearly true, and not things that are up for debate.

4) I feel that if the article is restructured slightly and the primary editors of this article (which, lately, seem to be BruceHallman and Ultramarine, who clearly have different views of Freedom House as an organization) could agree on this structure, it would save a lot of debate. I think the introduction of the article should state basic, verifiable facts (What they are, where they are headquartered, where they are located, and the fact that they are best known for publishing books). A statement saying that their political agenda is a matter of contention might also be included to indicate not everyone things that they are all sunshine and roses. I think the next section should be "History and Organization" and outline when and by whom they were founded, it's organization structure, the fact that the board is mostly American, it's funding, and it's membership in other organization. I think that the bit about what their activities (both in the historical section and in the organization section with the quote) should be moved to the next section, "Activities." The Activities (though that is maybe a bad heading) would include the above statements of what Freedom House's claims of prior activities are, the fact that they publish book and details of those books, and the information contained in the "other activities" section. The final section, I think should be titled something along the lines of "Political Leanings, Agenda, and Controversy" or something, and would be a space for the differing views of Freedom House to be discussed. The validity (or lack their of) of their ratings, if they are bias in favor of an Ameri-centric point of view, and if they are neo-cons or not could be discussed here. If the proceding sections are well written, they will be limited to things that can be easily verified, and all the debate about if Freedom House is good or bad will be contained in this section. Calling this section "Criticisms" has implications that I don't think are necessarly correct.

63.138.81.98 20:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison map

Would anyone be willing to make maps using the historical country ratings, which can be found on Freedom House's website, for comparison to their assessment of today's situation?. Tanarive 16:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] source POV

"Similarly, claims that Freedom House favours American definitions of political rights and civil liberties, allegedly because it is partly funded by U.S. government agencies, ignore the fact that Freedom House derives its research methodology directly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not from any American document, and has been using the same measurement standards for decades. [14]"

we are going to take freedom house's word for it? what's the evidence for this 'fact'? because Freedom House says so? i'm changing that to 'claims to'... of course it makes the sentance ridiculous. ignoring the fact that the subject claims the criticisms are not true. if anyone wishes to research in depth just how closely the freedom house fits with the UDHR in application. it's be a good topic for this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.246.182.108 (talk • contribs) 15:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] us information agency

for the longest time freedom house was funded by the us information agency wich was a propaganda organisation that got absorbed into the state department. it's stated objective was to promote U.S. foriegn policy abroad. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.246.182.108 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Credibility

Is there a rational explanation as to how Ukraine is a "free" country while Russia is "not free"? The logic on the part of Freedom House as well as the government it unconditionally supports in Washington DC have this perception simply because Yushchenko is their puppet while Putin conducts an independent foreign policy. There is very little credibility as this "Freedom House" organization posesses transparent biases. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.127.36.136 (talk • contribs) 01:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Detailed descriptions of all nations, but not from the most recent 2006 report, can be found online here: [2].Ultramarine 12:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Browsing through the dubious claims made by Freedom House, one can observe that it has a pro-Yeltsin bias which is unsurprising because Yeltsin yielded to western interests while this is much less so the case with Putin. This superficial overview even contains historical inaccuracies. For instance, it is lied that Yeltsin put down an attempted coup by hard-liners when in fact it was he who unleashed a coup. He violated the constitution and was legally removed from office. With support from the military he invaded the capital and slaughtered hundreds of patriotic Russians. This also seems to piss and moan about Putin's restriction of the activities of NGOs who in actuality are spies who act on behalf of foreign governments rendering them puppets. This is the case with other countries as it is illegal to not report foreign funding. Needless to say, foreign funding severely undermines the input of the People who these NGOs clearly do not represent or take into account. I would like an explanation as to why in the Russian legislature today there are over a dozen political parties including those figures of a very different political spectrum of Putin such as Zyuganov and Zhirinovskii. While Putin is implicated to have engaged in electoral fraud following his presidential victory, there is nothing whatsoever mentioned about the blatantly unscrupulous methods used by Yeltsin to steal the 1995 presidential election which included the complete negligence of information about Zyuganov. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.126.7.200 (talk • contribs) .

Ever thought it might be because Ukraine has reasonably fair elections, while Russia's are show elections since Putin came to power? —Nightstallion (?) 14:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a problem with the map. Italy is a PARTLY FREE country. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=16&year=2005&country=6760 But it's shown as green in this map.

You are looking at Freedom of the Press, not Freedom in the World.Ultramarine 23:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] possible islamophobic discrimination

Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania are party free, unlike Serbia? WTF? Whats so comparatively wrong with them? And Macedonia and Albania are candidates to NATO, expected to enter in 2008, and are candidates for the EU, having the usual drill of jumping through hoops to satisfy both criterias? How could they be partly free????????? I see one of the negative points for Bosnia and Herzegovina is the fact that there is a High Representative of the UN (also the Special Representative of the EU) with significant powers in the politics. But thats crazy, how can they conclude apriori that this is an impediment to democracy in this country; at least, apparently the EU and the UN dont think so... The only common denominator is that they all have large islamic populations, but thats blatant discrimination--83.131.138.135 03:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Detailed descriptions of each nation can be found here: [3]Ultramarine 04:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I read this, as you can see by mentioning the ridiculous lower grade justification by mentioning the High Representative of the UN and the Special Representative of the EU as part of undemocratic features of the BiH. Like I said, apparently, the EU and the UN dont think so.. This whole thing is totaly ridiculous; they put a paragraph of text there and this justifies a ranking. Who writes that text, how he/she chooses to represent each country, which among the various events are chosen and how theyre depicted, and finally how are they ranked - nothing is shown with those supposed 'details'. One might well diminish the freedom of Mexico or U.S. ranking due to ellection scandals, or capital punishment. And one could equally diminish BiH grade due to the High Representative or any First Past the Post country like Mexico and U.S. for not having proportional representation - who gets to decide what makes something a better democratic institution? How dare they???? --83.131.150.52 20:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Note, those countries have lower grades than a country that, after decades of dictatorship had a first democratic primeminister and that guy got shot swiftly. A country that is considered so negligent in its prosecution of some of the worst mass murderors europe saw after the WW II that EU has stopped all negotiation with it about approaching the EU - while one of the countries here marked lowers is among the closest countries to enter, having started screening. A country which official politics habitually blaimes OECD as conspiering against them as an explanation of the failures of some of their foreign politics (especially about keeping Kosovo its part), and where the strongest party, (Radical Party), having got 27% on last ellection, announced the continuation of the program of Greater Serbia (i.e. territorial expansion) and calling for a var against 'vatican' (??whatever thats supposed to mean).... And in comparison with THAT, BiH is criticised for having a High Representative of the UN as part of its democratic structure???????????????????? --83.131.150.52 20:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

More details regarding how the ranking is done can be found here: [4]Ultramarine

" The research and ratings process involved nearly two dozen analyst/writers and 13 senior-level academic advisors. The eight members of the core research team headquartered in New York, along with fifteen outside consultant writers, prepared the country and territory reports. The writers used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic analyses, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region in preparing their reports.

The country and territory ratings were proposed by the writers of each related report. The ratings were reviewed on a comparative basis in a series of six regional meetings--Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe--involving the writers and academic advisors with expertise in each region. The ratings were compared to the previous year's findings, and any major proposed numerical shifts or category changes were subjected to more intensive scrutiny. These reviews were followed by cross-regional assessments in which efforts were made to ensure comparability and consistency in the findings. Some of the key country reports were also reviewed by the academic advisors.

The survey's methodology is reviewed periodically by an advisory committee on methodological issues. Over the years, the committee has made a number of modest methodological changes to adapt to evolving ideas about political rights and civil liberties"

So, in essence, they name reviewers, writers and advisers however they wish to, those essentially pick a number, having no common methodology to follow in their research but the checklist questions they should consider, then discuss it.. as adhoc as possible, just as I thought --83.131.150.52 21:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a fairly detailed checklist at the end. Points are given for each one, then the points are summed. So there is certainly a common methodology.Ultramarine 21:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

But the decisions on each one are made simply on the basis on how the writer feels about that issue. Under methodology, I thought a metodology of pools submitted to the general population of those countries, and/or various interest groups (trade unions - interestingly, by these definitions of freedom there doesnt seems like there would be much to ask the trade unions - major parties, NGOs, international NGOs, supranational entities, etc) , nor indeed any deliberation with anyone either 'on the field, or internationally, or in the academia but those appointed by the freedom house itself, and no specific criteria are given for this appointing process either. In short, ad hoc. --83.131.150.52 21:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As you yourself quoted, they do indeed make use of NGOs and so on. A general survey of the population or groups inside the nation is of course impossible in dictatorships.Ultramarine 21:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Only at the discretion of the writer. Theres no deliberation with any group outside the freedom house as part of the process... No surveys of anything seem to be made in the nondictatorships either, and international NGOs and academia still can be surveyed even about dictatorships...--83.131.150.52 22:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As you yourself quoted, they do deliberate with others. Note that all surveys would be just as subjective. If you ask a group of Stalinists they will state that Cuba and North Korea are free. If you ask a group of fundamentalist Islamists they may state that Iran or Saudi Arabia is free. If you ask a group of anarchists they will state that no state is free. The subject has some inherent subjectivity, it is not like infant mortality that can be easily measured.Ultramarine 22:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

only if your questions are as vague as is freedom houses checklist. Ask specific and you can get answers. For example, ask unionists if they have the right to strike, or if the collective contracts are respected. Speak with them to describe when, how etc..... They only use sources by NGOs etc, theres no mention that they even meet with them, or that they are in any sense consulted, it seems they only read and quote at the writers discretion sellected publications, and its clear that those dont participate in sellecting the rating; writers doo..--83.131.150.52 22:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually they do consider trade unions: "3. Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?" As stated earlier, a survey inside the coutnry is often impossible, a survey outside the country would be completely subjective depending on who is asked.Ultramarine 22:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

And not asking or consulting anyone at all is clearly not subjective at all?--83.131.150.52 01:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

i hope some aditional input will be seen on this issue. I wonder if criticism of their 'method' and conclusion is frequent, and ho w it should be noted in the article. Both the randomness of the process and results is far too extreme for this to be portrayed even nearly as an unbiased entity... --83.131.150.52 02:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have any sourced criticism, add it.Ultramarine 07:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Ill take a look. In the meantime, heres from a sympathetic article[5]:

"The process of creating the report, Puddington says, begins by assigning countries to area experts who sift through reports from human-rights groups and local and international media as well as governments themselves. Then the experts rank countries from one ("quite free") to seven ("very repressed")."

So, confirming that NGOs are not consulted,but that only at the writers discretion their publications are read. Only by trusting writers to be unbiased, and Freedom House's choice of writers to be such, can one believe ranks those people choose for countries..And there is no information whatsoever about how they name them--83.131.139.215 11:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Again, asking NGOs would be equally subjective, completely dependent on who is asked to give their opinions. You will get very different answers if you ask Marxist NGOs and anarcho-capitalist NGOs.Ultramarine 11:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be subjective, but not equally subjective - theres a decent number of organisations that wouldnt be generally considered as biased as Marxist or anarchocapitalist, like those same human rights groups they sellectively read reports from anyways. And quite a few organisations 'on the field' in a decent number of those countries, political parties, trade unions, proffesional associations and local NGOs.. Even if they dont decide the votes, even if the writers get the last word, theres no reason they are not consulted in person, and consulted in the rating process itself, seems like any of them would have a far greater idea about the real situation than a desk-bound writer abstracting an opinion from publications.. And certanly no reason why the sellection of those 'experts' is not a more transparent process. This may be a principal objection but please dont respond simply on a principal basis, because its an attempt to understand how exactly could have Freedom House missed by such a huge margin when comparing situation on the balkans. Really, if anyone thought of asking serbian opposition leaders (eg some of the people that brought about democratic changes after Milosevic, the ones whose leader soon got shot) about this, theres no way this could have happened. That its wrong is clear by the behaviour of other bodies more reputable than Freedom House - like the EU and the UN court in Hague (did I mention their official politics recently called a UN negotiator about the status of Kosovo a racist because he said that past actions of Miloshevic regime must be taken into account when determening the future status of Kosovo); theres just no dillema of their assesment of those countries, and youve not commented my description of some peculiarities of public life of Serbia, in comparison with a relatively undeveloped but nonexcessive fledling democracies of those part-islamic countries ..Though I see that Freedom House has offices in Serbia. Maybe this has something to do with this.. And this all still doesnt explain how the writer might have found it acceptable to criticise the political structure of the BiH created by the Dayton accords and supervised by the EU and UN as inherently undemocratic. If he finds it acceptible to judge such fundamental issues of a political structure of a country, he might well consider the effects of non-proportional representation on the political life etc. I think that would be maddness btw, but so is this then--83.131.139.215 14:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Another problem with asking NGOs about their opinion regarding democracy is that many will not answer, because this would risk their primary mission. For example Amnesty could easily itself give a ranking of democracy, but does not because it is primarily interested in helping individual political prisoners, not primarily in causing democracy. They very carefully avoid calling any state a democracy or not in their reports in order to not create hostility towards them.

Now regarding Serbia, it was cerainly not democratic a few years back, but history does not condemn a state forever. Here is a second opinion: "The Republic of Serbia is a parliamentary democracy with approximately 10.2 million inhabitants. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has led Serbia's multiparty government since March 2004. Boris Tadic was elected president in June 2004 elections that observers deemed essentially in line with international standards."[6]Ultramarine 14:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A third "The two rounds of polling were conducted peacefully in all regions including Kosovo, where only the Serb population participated. International and domestic non-partisan observers were generally satisfied with the polling procedures, although some minor irregularities were recorded."[7]Ultramarine 15:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

But if this were the standard, then there would be nothing to hold against Macedonia or Albania or BiH either; that was the case in those countries too. Comparatively stable goverments, with free and according to observers satisfactory ellections, pools etc.. Well possibly some NGOs could refuse. Still no reason not to try to include them. And I doubt other organisations, like parties unions etc would all refuse even to form an opinion specifically based on Freedom House's checklist, instead of the writer concluding their possible general position from sellected specific reports. This doesnt explain the closed nomination of writers either.--Aryah 16:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

But Macedonia and Albania are listed as electorial democracies. Regarding BIH and especially Kosovo, there are many problems, see [8].Ultramarine 16:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

"The report questioned how compatible Bosnia's membership in that body is given the High Representative's near dictatorial Bonn powers to dismiss elected officials from office and freeze their assets, without any requirement to show the basis on which such decisions are made.""In June, the current international High Representative, Sir Paddy Ashdown, removed 59 Bosnian Serb officials from their posts in government and state-owned enterprises,"

"Serious investigative journalism remains a dangerous activity for Bosnian journalists."

"While the various governments in Bosnia-Herzegovina do not restrict academic freedom, ethnic favoritism in appointments to academic positions, and the politicization of such appointments, remain a continuing problem."

"Corruption in the judiciary, police forces, and civil service forms a considerable obstacle to establishing the rule of law in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

"The judiciary is still considered to be unduly influenced by nationalist political parties and executive branches of government. Judges who show some independence are reported to have come under various forms of intimidation." Ultramarine 16:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Like none of that couldnt be said of serbia, or even of croatia; all quite corrupt countries, by public opinion and foreign NGO assesment, and my personal experience alike, with both ethnic preferencing, maximal politisation and allround corruption.... Look at for instance Human Rights Watch report on status of returning serbs in croatia. And Id have to dig but there was a recent study of corruption there, with horrible results. Transparency international might have an opinion about this.. And about serbia, think for instance of the fact that during the ellections for the independence of montenegro, just after announcing first preliminary results, where montenegro choose independance, on their national television there was aired a story about how supposedly corrupt montenegrian primeminister was, supposedly dealing with tobbacco, avoiding customs etc...Im not sure they ever recognised those results, inspite of the international community's assurance they were in order. Their minority asked for a re-vote reporting irregularities everywhere, again inspite international observers concluding everything was fine... And recently a ministar was relieved of duty in serbia following some ethnic insults said to her in parliament, due to being a croat... Interesting that High Representatives actions 'against' serb officials are prominently mentioned. Now what might have been the reason for the UN representative to choose such actions... In fact if you look at the situation more closely, he was quite right to do that; like he said many times, the serb entity of BiH is not a sovereign country, and cannot become this under the Dayton accord. This might have something to do with the fact that this entity is a consequence of a recent conquest by an invading army, that will not be granted teritorial spoils of war for massacres they did. Quite a lot of serbian polititians are opposed to this some even formally demanding secession, and following reports that mass murderes Mladic and Karadjic were still maintaining close connections with serbian political top, and failures to make serbian entity conform to some NATO standards (they didnt arrest even a single war criminal), he acted, within rights granted to him following the mutually agreed Dayton accoard. He said he wouldnt hesitate, within his rights, to put strong measures against the serbian entitys institutions and funds, and no option is excluded. One of the most wanted mass murderers, Mladic, was dismissed from the serbian entity's army only in 2002, the newspapers dicowered, 7 years after being charged for genocide by UN, and the 59 were fired for failing to arrest any of the criminals. This text you quoted is as biased as a text could get. And again since the office of the High Representative is a consequence of the Dayton peace accord that were mutually agreed upon, and an integral part of a very complex peace process, how dare Freedom House presume BiH would be better off if it didnt exist? A huge host of domestic and international diplomacy seems to think otherwise. And what the hell 'especially kosovo' means? Its surely a troubled territory, but Im sure the situation there is like a billion times better and inproving since its been an international protectorat than the massacres the dominant albanian population lived through prior to that. I see the depiction of the 2004 incidents is similarly widelly extreme see rather [2004_unrest_in_Kosovo]- the part-mutuallness of the violence is for instance completely omitted here - and also I find it interesting that the fact serbs boycotted ellections is seen as a reason to diminish freedom of the teritory? And still nothing of this can explain why its non-free not just part free. Boycott is a political means and theres a lot of tension there; so they used it. Its non-free as much as striking workers make a country non-free. In general the problem here is that it seems that the very existance and extent of ethnic tensions is used as an excuse to lower ratings, while it should rather be the efforts and political will to work on this that counts. In any case, Kosovo is a different matter. Probably not worse than serbia, but in any case I was reffering to BiH and esp Albania and Macedonia as being comparatively unfairly judged. The explanations of those grades indeed show a huge bias.... --Aryah 19:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Obviously people will always disagree on ratings like this. Freedom House rates nations and gives long descriptions for each nation, so everyone can form their own opinion if this is correct or not. I think the ratings are reasonable. You free to pubish your own report.Ultramarine 20:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possibe moron-writers :)

Just reading their assesment of Croatia: what kind of a braindead idiot wrote this: "school plans to introduce yoga classes into school curriculums (for fear of spreading Buddhist practices"???????Buddhist???????????yoga???????Buddhist???? Do I have to say it? So this is the level of 'experts' that write this? In anycase its not true, it was a plan to pay free yoga classes to professors, not in the curriculum. And Catholic influence was as much a part of this as concearns of corruption (i.e. who would get to do these classes, cuz it was pre-determined that a certain instrutors would have this privilege) --Aryah 21:06, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Full quote: "Respect for freedom of religion has increased in Croatia in the post-Tudjman period, although ethnic and religious minorities enjoy these rights to a significantly lesser degree than do ethnic Croatians. The overwhelming majority of Croatians are Roman Catholic. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church has a considerable degree of power and influence in the country and enjoys a favored position in many respects; for example, the state-run HRT provides up to 10 hours a month of coverage of Catholic events. The Catholic Church in Croatia also has considerable influence over social policies in the country, and in recent years has campaigned against a variety of proposals, ranging from school plans to introduce yoga classes into school curriculums (for fear of spreading Buddhist practices) to campaigns against Sunday business hours. Restitution of properties confiscated during the Communist period for the Orthodox and Jewish communities is believed to lag behind settlement of such problems with the Roman Catholic Church. There were also numerous reports of vandalism against Serbian Orthodox sites during the year."Ultramarine 21:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

But, but, dont you understand YOGA IS NOT BUDDHIST!!! Hidu, perhaps one could say this but NOT BUDDHIST, not even remotely buddhist. And it is a lie, there was never a plan to indroduce yoga in school curriculum in croatia. I live there, i remember this scandal. And it was a corruption scandal too, though undoubtebly allso in the interest of the church. It both shows incredible ignorance (buddhist yoga) and uninformendness; there was no idea to put yoga as part of the school curiculum. Those are stuffed allready, theres no way to push it in anyways..--Aryah 21:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Even if correct, this still demonstrates the power of the Catholic Church.Ultramarine 21:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the church is all-powerfull here, his baisic thesis is quite correct, but this shows a level of unproffesionalism. I remember this, when during the daily news they interview a church-guy explains how Shavist beliefs are essentially the worship of falus, and how yoga is Shavist...And Im a practicing Buddhist so know a bit about what is or isnt buddhist.. So even the church here knows that yoga is not buddhist... And again, it was not to be part of the curriculum, and was both a church and corruption issue.. --Aryah 21:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, we both agree that the authors ~main point is essentially correct.Ultramarine 21:29, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, but this wasnt my point anyways. --Aryah 21:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Another false information : "especially in cases relating to the repossession of property owned by Serbs." There isnt so much problems of the repossesion of property owned by Serbs: usually the problems are with serbs who during communism had tennants rights on some goverment-owned objects, and officially lost them by fleeing during the war, when others were privatised. Those are not processed easily.. I also resent the depiction of the war in croatia as between croats and serb minority in croatia, and asif constitutional status of the republic of srpska krajna was equal to that of croatia in secession from yugoslavia, since first under the federal constitution of 1971 of yugoslavia, federal entities had a constitutional right of secession; and a newly created area of srpska krajna had no such constitutional rights, and second, it was a war with mostly the serbianised federal army of yugoslavia and serb forces, where the serbian minority had pretty much the role german minority in czech had when Hitler annexed czechoslovakia, and that its said that during the operation storm, serbs were forced out, which, though I find it quite likely to be true, has IMO not yet been proven. The official position in any case was a constant airing of calls to serbs in kraina not to flee, during the action.. --Aryah 21:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

And also, the serbian entity wasnt determined in teritorial extend by the area that proclaimed its independence from croatia, but by the success of the conquest; in encompassed all in could counquer.. --Aryah 21:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You are of course free to disagree. Again, there will always be disagreement on ratings like this. I think the overall ratings are reasonable and since Freedom House publishes a lengthy report on each nation everyone can form their own opinion.Ultramarine 21:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, no, its a overall fair assesment, problems generally are precisely of the kind this report identifies. Only, it has quite a few factual mistakes, and few complete and obvious blunders; this one is not unfair, but its factually wrong in quite a few details. Imo it puts into question the expertness of the experts, their professionalism, but doesnt show much of a bias. --Aryah 21:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I am sure there are some mistakes. Overall I think the ratings are reasonable. The ratings are very similar generally to the ratings given by other researchers in the Polity IV project [9], which gives independent support for the reliability.Ultramarine 21:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

But this report rates even Albania higher than serbia, and macedonia even higher than croatia, equal to bulgaria and above romania, which was about my feel of this too, and is in line with the status of those countries with the EU. BiH seems unrated, its marked as foreign occuppation, probably reffering to the protectorate, mark -66 (i guess one shouldnt interpret this as more than 7 times less free than n. korea's -9) Also, moldova is rated higher than croatia, albania, serbia and equal to romania.--Aryah 22:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

For the last available year, 2003, Serbia, Albania, and Croatia all get the same ranking, 7 out of 10 to -10, quite high.Ultramarine 22:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

but whats this then: [10] - serbia 6, croatia and albania 7, romania, moldova 8, macedonia, bulgaria 9 ? Serbia was 7 in 2002, it was lowered in 2003. --Aryah 22:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, saw wrong. Regardless, all very high score on a scale from 10 to -10. Bosnia is listed as foreign occuption, so certainly not democratic.Ultramarine

Russia and Ukraine are also 7. Thats quite a difference from Freedom House really; seems that both the balkans are upside-down essentially, and that russia goes from non-free to free directly. And interestingly they seem to think that Putin is comparatively better to Yeltsin , not sure what to think of this rating :) --Aryah 22:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Balkans they generally agree that Bosnia is not a democracy and that the others mostly are. Russia is disagreement but note that FH gave Russia better scores in 2003.Ultramarine 22:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, FH doesnt seem to think that Bosnia is not a democracy, thats not true; it thinks its a democracy essentially as much as is Turkey.. Its not even nominally true; it is a democracy constitutionally. But in any case, while they generally agree that others mostly are, they are exatly opposite in concluding the order of them, and which can be considered partly free, and this is most extremely the case with Macedonia, varying in Polity IV points for about 3 degrees between those two assesments (6 seems to be around what FH would consider partly-free; thats the assesment of Venezuela and Equador too, for eg.., and 9 is better than brazil, argentina, romania..) Ok, possibly russia got worse in the meantime.. --Aryah 22:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

FH lists all states in Balkan as electorial democracies except Bosnia. Polity lists all states in Balkan as fairly democratic except Bosnia. Regarding Venezuela it got much higher scores a few years back.Ultramarine 22:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not true, bosnia is listed as foreign occupation, there is no trend line at all in Polity for it. If you look at the text about bosnia its not negative. Theres nothing to indicate that bosnia is considered especially undemocratic on this list; or indeed to interpret it that way would mean that bosnia is actually the most opressive goverment on the world: it got -66 out of minimum -10. if you look at the article on Politics_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina you can read that "Politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system" . Really the supposedly undemocratic features of bosnia are a part of the peace process, and ethnic reconciliation, which is far from easy. But within this, people are relatively free, that is, as free as is typicall of balkans..Ill see how Venezuela, Russia etc fare with grades at 2003, but it was an example anyways. Btw Turkey is seen as something between 7 and 8 also, while its partly-free at FH. Maybe this changed too in the past few years?? But, an islamic democracy again. coincidence?--Aryah 23:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Foreign occupation is not a democracy. If Polity considered Bosnia to be a sovereign democracy, then it would have given a high score. Turkey is listed as an electorial democracy.

Generally, you seem fixated on the difference between Free and Partly Free in the FH rankings. Electorial democracy or not is far more important.Ultramarine 23:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Look as long as such a neat graphic element of this article is precisely the Free-Partly Free-Non Free map, then yes, whats considered free and whats partly free should well mean something. So Im definitely fixated on this. If a map of some other FH data was made instead, Id fixate on that data instead.. --Aryah 00:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not really a foreign occupation, but an international protectorate, and one agreed upon by all parties. I guess they used their mark of occupation to mark this situation. Of course its a sovereign democracy, again read that article about politics in BiH. Well, theres different kinds of democracies; even communists hold ellections (where one chooses between different members of that single party of course) , and have a special (indeed intriguing) system of soviet (that is council) democracy. So yes I think actuallity of this democracy is more important than if its formally democracy or not. Yes, my problems here are mostly on the differences between their comparative assesments of democracy on the balkans, and particularly it seems a pro-serb or anti-islamic bias, im not sure which, probably the latter. And Polity assesment supports this in each instance. --Aryah 23:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Again, you are free to voice your opinion. Freedom House and the Polity Project do not consider Bosnia to be an independent democracy. You disagree with them. Fine, publish your own report.Ultramarine 23:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You can hardly show that they dont consider it democratic - for instance Polity acknowledges that ellections of both the collective head of goverment and parliament are genarally free, and again mentiones the authority vested in the Office of High Representative as having decisive role, but without any FH's critical remarks of this fact. If you look at the graph of freedom in BiH, you can see it sitting on 6, that is , free as Serbia, 2003's venezuela etc. Id love to see precisely what FH says about this, but their site is unresponsive currently.. --Aryah 23:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, some of the causes of criticism Ive found in this investigation are clear-cut enough to varrant a mention in the article. Id like to find some source of criticism, its easier to frame it without violating the no original research policy if I do. I still hope others possible conversants finding merit in this criticisms might show interest and hopefully have an idea of where to find such sources. --Aryah 23:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

To support my claim of factual errors in the article on croatia, heres the latest report from human rights watch about bad treatment of serb returners in croatia [11]. "The failure to address housing rights stripped from Croatian Serbs during the war continues to obstruct sustainable return to urban areas. Many Serbs who enjoyed permanent rights to occupy state apartments had these rights terminated when they fled their homes during the war. Government programs designed to provide them with substitute housing have proved ineffective, making return to Croatia difficult or impossible. " and previously it says "Successive government programs to assist returning Serbs have failed to deliver real benefits, with the qualified exception of a program to rebuild war-damaged homes. " So, not only has property been easily returned, but even the rebuilding of war-damaged property has been by HRW opinion "partial success story ". However, the housing rights on state owned apartments that serbs lost during the war (it takes 6months of not living somwhere to loose that right, under the old communist rules) are indeed a huge concern. Mixing up the two is however indicative of not really being informed about the situation in the country one's assesing. Unlike the well informed HRW.It also makes a significant difference, because the European Court of human rights has ruled that croatia is not legally obligated to help those who lost housing rights. It would be dispicable if it didnt help them anyways of course, particularly because this would systematically disempower a minority, and HRW is quite right, however this was a volontarly-taken obligation of the goverment, while not returning their property is a far graver disrespect of private property. Also the HRW report is fair enough to say serbs fled during the operation storm, not fled or were driven out. I personally might have doubts the latter to be the case, but it remains a speculation for now and FH is quite wrong to use it.--Aryah 00:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

To reanswer a prevous question:

Generally, you seem fixated on the difference between Free and Partly Free in the FH rankings. Electorial democracy or not is far more important.Ultramarine 23:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Look as long as such a neat graphic element of this article is precisely the Free-Partly Free-Non Free map, then yes, whats considered free and whats partly free should well mean something. So Im definitely fixated on this. If a map of some other FH data was made instead, Id fixate on that data instead. Btw how does one make these maps? Could a similar map be made from their data on media freedom?. --Aryah 00:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Bosnia, it is not a sovereigtn democracy and not even state because those elected does not control the territorium. A state should have monopoly on the legitimate violence in its territiorium. It is that same situtaion in Hong Kong: there are elections, but the most important executive is selected by China which also has military troopis in the city, and has the final word on decisions, not those elected. Thus not a democracy. Regarding how to make a map, you can simply download one of the blank maps in Wikipedia and then color the nations with a paint program that has a "bucket" funciton.Ultramarine 07:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"While elections for Presidents are relatively open and competitive (although heavily scrutinized and influenced by the international community), all appointments to the executive branch must be made in consultation with the international community's Office of the High Representative (OHR). Real power resides in the OHR who can, and does, remove elected leaders and impose decrees. De facto executive power resides in the fragmented constituent "entity" administrations (Bosniac-Croat Federation and Serb Republic) and in informal structures linked with ethnic-militias. The Bosniac-Croat Federation should also be considered fragmented as cooperation between Bosniac and Croat leaders remains tenuous, at best. The judiciary in both "entities" is subject to intimidation and influence by local leaders." and "Together, these international institutions provide the ultimate executive authority that governs the Bosnian state, therefore, an "interruption" code (-66) is assigned."[12]Ultramarine 08:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV/Incoherence

"Similarly, claims that Freedom House favours American definitions of political rights and civil liberties, allegedly because it is partly funded by U.S. government agencies, ignore the fact that Freedom House claims that it derives its research methodology directly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not from any American document, and has been using the same measurement standards for decades."

If I understand this sentence correctly, the writer is strongly implying that claims about Freedom House made by one group of people should not be taken seriously because other claims made by Freedom House about the soundness of their own methods are to be taken seriously. This presupposes that Freedom House's own methods are fair and accurate, which is precisely what their critics dispute. (Just because they claim that their methodology derives from the UDHR, which is what's asserted here, doesn't mean that they really do derive from it.) It's not up to the writer of this article to to decide how fair and accurate Freedom House is (or isn't), merely to report accurately what they say they do, and also the fact that non-trivial criticisms have been made of their methods. Lexo 11:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I second your view, this has to be changed. Such wording is POV and misleading. --Eintragung ins Nichts 09:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have removed that section and added the only thing sourced to the report section. That is, the claim how they use the Universal Declaration.Ultramarine 20:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Since when has 'Freedom in the World' been published, since 1978 or since 1973?

Quote from the article: "Since 1978, Freedom House has produced a yearly report, Freedom in the World,..." - but on their own website ( http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=249 ) Freedom House they say that 'Freedom in the World' had been produced since 1973. What is true?

The later should be used since it is sourced.Ultramarine 09:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Credibility Undermined

Freedom House, which rated Russia "not free" in its latest world survey, is strangely silent when it comes to the growing loss of liberty in the U.S., and it's no mystery as to why. These guys are on the U.S. government payroll: they get subsidies from the U.S. Treasury in order to promote "democracy" worldwide. "Democracy," in this context, means the installation of a compliant American sock-puppet, one who, like Georgian strongman Mikheil Saakashvili, knows what side his bread is buttered on. Never mind his atrocious "human rights" record: let's pretend, for the moment, that he isn't jailing his political opponents and intimidating the rest into silence. He is supported by the "pro-democracy" movement because weakening Russia, at all costs, is the primary goal of those who are handing out the cash.

Russia has come a long way since the implosion of the Soviet Empire. Despite reversals – and copious foreign interference – it is making its way toward a market economy and the rule of law, albeit in fits and starts. Those who criticize Putin for supposedly reintroducing authoritarian rule can marshal not a single iota of evidence: opposition political parties exist and conduct vigorous public campaigns. No newspapers or media outlets have been closed down for giving voice to dissident anti-government views. They have changed owners, yes – but isn't that an essential characteristic of the market economy we are always urging on them? Russia has more political parties than the U.S., and the ballot-access laws are much more accommodating to dissident (or "third") parties. Yet Putin is supported by 70 percent of the voters: the "dissidents" are, for the most part, a handful of noisy, self-promoting professional malcontents, each of them competing for handouts from Uncle Sam.

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9879 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.126.252.207 (talk • contribs) .

Most international civil rights groups outside Freedom House have been heavily critical of Russia's slide in civil rights which is much, much more drastic than developments in the United States. The United States has problems but the degree of the problems is much different than the degree of problems in many other parts of the world. Problems in the US are covered by Freedom House as well as is demonstrated in the Freedom House essay section on the website which contains these words:

"Although the United States and the majority of countries in Western Europe registered the highest possible ratings on the freedom index--a 1 for both political rights and civil liberties--Freedom in the World 2006 noted several looming problems in a number of these established democracies. In addition to human rights concerns raised by counter-terrorism measures taken since 9/11, the survey pointed to the widespread use of sophisticated forms of gerrymandering in the drawing of congressional district lines in the United States as a weakness in that country's electoral process that has reduced competitiveness in congressional and state legislative elections. At the same time, the survey findings revealed that several European countries are facing challenges to their democratic institutions from a failure to effectively integrate non-European immigrants socially or economically, a problem whose most vivid reflection was the rioting that afflicted France during the past year. In addition to France, the survey pointed to Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and Denmark as among a group of countries that face the challenge of integrating large immigrant populations of differing ethnic and cultural backgrounds."

Jztinfinity 17:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frank Calzón

Frank Calzón left Freedom House almost 10 years ago; I'm not sure how the fact that he was described as an "anti-Castro activist" two years ago is relevent criticism of Freedom House. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.138.81.98 (talk • contribs) 18:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Recently reverted edits

I recently reverted a set of edits because it seems to me that the purpose of these edits was to push an anti-Freedom House POV; furthermore, the only source, [13], seems to be a rather POV website. Heimstern Läufer 20:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism section

I feel that the sources cited in the criticism section do not qualify as notable, aside from the Washington Times. Half of them are just random websites with no notable status whatsoever, just so that people can bash FreedomHouse as being "neoconservative". I mean, would it be ok for me to make a website arguing that FH was pro-communist and then use it as a wikipedia source. Most of these citations should be removed. 144.32.196.3 10:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have been watching this article for a while and it seems to be under concerted attack by anti-Americanism. As a Democrat-supporting non-American political science student, I have to say Freedom House is one of the most respected organisations throughout the discipline. Indeed it has been critical of the US and her allies (although clearly not as critical as some radical elements would like). The reliable sources page states that, for non-scholarly sources:

1. "Self published sources such as personal web pages, personally published print runs and blogs have not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking."
2. "A source may be considered reliable if another source which is generally considered reliable cites or recommends it."
3. That "Claims not supported or claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community" should not be relied upon.
4. Extremist organizations and individuals, whether of a political, religious, racist, or other character, should be used only as primary sources; that is, they should only be used as sources about themselves and their activities, and even then should be used with caution.

Going through the various citations in the criticism section, we have:

1. Paly Voice - high school journalism. As much as I delight in seeing adolescents getting involved in the media, its hardly a reliable authorative source
2. AlterNet - it self declares itself as "alternative" combatting the "The right-wing media machine". Despite years studying political science I've never heard of it and can't find any reliable source which cites it.
3. Antiwar.com - an extremist libertarian organisation with the author in question previously claiming 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy [14].
4. The Washington Times - obviously a reliable source but I hardly see how being an "anti-Castro activist" counts as criticism of FH - especially as the man in question left the organisation a long time ago.
5. International Relations Center - again, seems like an unnotable think tank. It's left-leaning but seems ok. However, it also states "Both rightwing and leftwing governments have come up with poor ratings".
6. OpedNews - seems like a personal blog.

I'm going to go through and remove the dross.

The Enlightened 16:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Malaysia has no electoral democracy?

Who says that Malaysia has no electoral democracy? The prime minister and other ministers are voted by the people and for the people there. Does it make it any different to Electoral Democracies? So, I disagree with the map shown above. There's Dewan Rakyat (People's Hall = Lower House) and Dewan Negara (National Hall = House of Lords) and this is clearly seen in a democratic nation like the United Kingdom. Indeed Malaysia and United Kingdom both have a Constitutional Monarchy system. So, what makes Malaysia not a nation with electoral democracy? --Fantastic4boy 22:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Kindly see Politics of Malaysia. --Fantastic4boy 23:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

You can see the description of Malaysia for the year 2005 here: [15] Ultramarine 23:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It says that "Malaysia's political rights rating improved from 5 to 4 due to the holding of reasonably free parliamentary elections" and that it. Yes I'm well aware of the rating from 5 to 4 but it did mention about "free parliamentaty elections." Just because it's a partly free nation, does it make it any less democratic? Politics is a complicated issue - just because of one man, Anwar Ibrahim, who created such a scene in Malaysia that the nation is not considered having electoral democracy. At least he wasn't exiled or anything worse happened to him like getting shot/killed for rebelling against the government like what many of the non-democractic nations like Cuba and Myanmar might do. In fact, the new Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was allowed to be voted by his people - do I need to prove that too? --Fantastic4boy 23:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that you Ultramarine that you got the source from Freedom House that determine's Malaysia being the status of non-electoral democracy, and I respect that, but I myself disagree with the information the website is giving for this - since that it's contradicting with the current Malaysian politics (esp. that the Anwar case is over now). --Fantastic4boy 23:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

According to Freedom House's methodology, to count as an electoral democracy, a country must have "1) A competitive, multiparty political system; 2) Universal adult suffrage for all citizens (with exceptions for restrictions that states may legitimately place on citizens as sanctions for criminal offenses); 3) Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud, and that yield results that are representative of the public will 4) Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning." If a country doesn't have all those things, then they don't count it. According to the Malaysia report, "Opposition parties face serious obstacles, such as unequal access to the media and restrictions on campaigning and on freedom of assembly that leave them unable to compete on equal terms with the BN." I would assume that is the justification for why it is not classified as an electoral democracy. 63.138.81.98 23:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorfileonline

Vlad fedorov, why are you adding material from "terrorfileonline"? It makes many claims but lists no sources? Ultramarine 08:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Because they are direct source I could cite them. We don't need the sources to be supported with other secondary sources. By the way, information which you introduce into the article is unsourced. Is it your personal original research? If no, then please list here the sources from which you have taken this information which you introduce into the article.Vlad fedorov 08:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia must use Wikipedia:Reliable sources. A website that does not list sources is not reliable; anyone can write something on the web.Ultramarine 09:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

In your latest edits I added sources for thing that you requested, like that they have criticzed Chile under Pinochet, but you simply deleted this. Why? Ultramarine 09:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ultramarine, perhaps you should read Wikipedia:Reliable sources with more attention. Could you give me a citation from there supporting your claims? Also this Wikipedia:Reliable sources says that unsourced statements could be deleted from Wikipedia. Considering that your contributionas are not supported by whatever sources and are your personal original research, I suggest you to think twice.Vlad fedorov 09:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, I added sources that you requested, like for Chile, or the earlier history, but you simply reverted this without explanation. Why? Ultramarine 09:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I have restored you link personally. What about your sourcing of your statements in the introductory paragraph?Vlad fedorov 09:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What statement? Ultramarine 09:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I had also added a link to show that FH states that they supported the Civil Rights movement and so on, but you reverted also this without explanation.Ultramarine 09:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ultramarine, you may restore all your links. I have reverted the text, because you have illegaly removed my text. You are free to add anything you could support with citations here. But you cannot delete sourced statements without clear facts of violations of Wikipedia policies as you did. Deletion of sourced material is a form vandalism.Vlad fedorov 09:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Now lets discuss Terrorfileonline and Rightweb. They makes lots of statements but have no sources. Therefore, at the very least, you should write the "The Website Terrorfileonline claims" for every statement they make. Now the impression is that these things are undisputed facts.Ultramarine 09:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

And it is that's why I have provided references to 'The Website Terrorfileonline' at each passage taken from their webpage.Vlad fedorov 09:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You still need, at the very least, to point out that it is a website claiming this without any further evidence.Ultramarine 09:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

But then you should also to point out that all unsourced sentences in this article are contributed by anonymous users. Would you be so kind as to support with sources and references all these statements in the article?Vlad fedorov 15:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russia is not an electoral democracy??

What an idiotic statement??? How about Constitution of Russian Feederation? Absolutely absurd claims. The US don't have direct elections and they have electoral democracy and Russian Federation which has direct elections of a President and Parlament is not? Who is that Liar who drawed that map?Vlad fedorov 08:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Please read [16]. What do you disagree with? Ultramarine 08:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It contradicts to self-evident facts. President is elected by direct elections and Parlament is elected by direct elections, unlike in the US. Paid biased advertisement of Donald Rumsfled. By the way if we would apply the same criteria to the United States and famous vote recount in Florida, should we consider US an electoral democracy? Albert Gore has got more actual direct votes and wasn't elected as President?Vlad fedorov 09:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It does state the President is elected but also that for example the media and press are restricted.Ultramarine 09:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It not states, it's not an official court sentence. It alleges without any evidence. Second, even these allegations are not relevant to the fact that Russia is an electoral democracy.Vlad fedorov 09:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

To qualify as an electoral democracy, a state must have satisfied the following criteria: 1) A competitive, multiparty political system; 2) Universal adult suffrage for all citizens (with exceptions for restrictions that states may legitimately place on citizens as sanctions for criminal offenses); 3) Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud, and that yield results that are representative of the public will; 4) Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning.Ultramarine 09:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• 1)A competitive, multiparty political system - Present in Russia
• 2) Universal adult suffrage for all citizens (with exceptions for restrictions that states may legitimately place on citizens as sanctions for criminal offenses) - Present in Russia
• 3) Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud, and that yield results that are representative of the public will Present in Russia
• 4) Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning -Present in Russia.

I would like also to note that some criteria here are hard to measure and therefore they create a basement for subjective and biased estimates. The words like 'significant', 'major political parties', 'reasonable', 'massive fraud' are subjective. To me Florida elections do not confrom to these criteria and therefore the US is not an electoral democracy too. However these issues are not covered by that map - and it is evident that it is just a propaganda map.Vlad fedorov 09:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Lets agree on 1-3. Here are some quotes regarding 4: "Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech, the government continues to put pressure on the dwindling number of media outlets still critical of the Kremlin. Since June 2003, when the last independent national television network, TVS, was seized by the government, allegedly to settle the company's debts, all Russian national television networks have been controlled by the government or by economic interests that support the government and uniformly praise the president."

It's ironic but just today on the morning I have watched news updates of NTV TV channel and heard criticism of the government for immigration laws and social security. So these are just unsupported allegations of the specific subjective and biased individual. By the way, in the United States Rupert Murdock is also an official (New York mayor) and Dick Cheney (Halliburton), and Condolizza Rice (Enron Board of Directors) are Board of Director's members of different commercial companies, which doesn't prevent the US from being electoral democracy. But the real question how grounded these charges on freedom of speech are?

Just an example of freedom of speech in Russia. Journalist for five years had been writing the following in Russia: There is no negotiating, there can be no negotiating with Russia, which Aslan Maskhadov talked about so much. Russia can only be destroyed. And she MUST be destroyed, — it’s a preventive self-defence measure on the part of humankind from that fanatic diabolism which Russia carries inside since the first mass murders and executions for criticisms of power, since the conquests of Novgorod and Kazan. [1570 and 1552. — Trans.] Russians must be killed, and only killed — they lack those normal, clever, intelligent ones who you could talk with and rely on their understanding. Harsh collective responsibility must be introduced for all Russians, all loyal citizens of Russia, for the actions of the authorities they have elected — for genocide, mass murders, executions, dead body trade… […] Kill, kill, kill! To bathe all of Russia in blood, to show not the least mercy to anyone, to try to set up at least one nuclear explosion on the territory of the Russian Federation — this is what the agenda of the radical Resistance should be, Russian, Chechen, or anyone’s. http://www.veryrussian.net/2006/boris-stomakhin-the-opposition-journalist-who-wanted-me-killed.html. Vlad fedorov 10:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Statements causing support Russia's current foreign policy is obviously not going to be stopped. The US have free media where all political parties frequently can express their views.Ultramarine 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ultramarine, how many journalists in the US are calling to kill all US citizens without mercy? Is this a foreign policy? Could you submit such examples here? If no, then the US are the most repressive country in the world as to the freedom of speech.Vlad fedorov 12:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A simple Goggle search will show numerous neo-nazi websites located in the US advocating various atrocities.Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Why are you changing these of our dispute? I also studied sophistics in Logics and Philosophy courses, but we talk not about fascists and neo-nazists, but about ordinary journalists. Could you publish here analagous citation from the NYTimes, Washington Post, or Chicago Tribune journalists?Vlad fedorov 12:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

How about the "Unabomber Manifesto"? Now, is there common critcisms of Putin on television, like of Bush in the US? Ultramarine 13:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

So you claim that Unabomber was a journalist? Pathetic try, but publication by the US journalists of fasists, terrorist statements doesn't count. You may also remind me Colin Powell in the Security Council and his 'biological weapons pial'. Please publish here personal statement of US journalists who calls himself to kill al US civilians.Vlad fedorov 15:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I see you have problems with citing me analogous citations of US journalist. I want to tell you one thing. After 15 years of absolute freedom of expresion here in Russia, most of people hate it. You know why? Because absolute freedom of speech means you could literally shit and pee on the head of your opponent, and no one will be able to prevent you from doing it. It's not a freedom, it is worse than prison. There is no absolute freedom of speech in the US and anywhere. There are well know US Supreme Court decisions like Sullivan vs. USA, Fallwell vs. Hustler which set out boundaries for this freedom. The problem in Russia was the absolute lack of any boundaries. Mr. Boris Stomakhin who wished me and all other Russians to die, is one of the individuals who used this gap. Libel laws indeed at least created some boundaries for fascists and nazis like Sotmakhin. By the way, Committee to Protect Journalists claims that Stomakhin, who called to exterminate Russians and who called terrorist attacks on Russians 'legal, natural and justified', is a dissident. I have been laughing at it for almost a week, when learned about that. Should Hitler be born in modern Russia, without any doubts, he should have been classified as a Saint Dissident, Political Prisoner or Prisoner of Conscience in the US.Vlad fedorov 22:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

"Libel laws are used to intimidate independent media. More than 6,000 lawsuits were filed against newspapers and journalists in 2004. In May, the State Duma approved a package of amendments aimed at penalizing media outlets for reprinting or rebroadcast erroneous news reports during electoral campaigns."

In the United States according to Patriot Act libels against US government are criminally prosecuted. So, whose the man???Vlad fedorov 10:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Do you have a source? Ultramarine 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You government could intercept any phone calls and internet communications, it could arrest without bringing any charges individuals for two months. Immigrants are obliged to submit DNA material for immigration services. You claim its freedom? Thanks, I don't think it's a freedom. Vlad fedorov 12:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

These are not restrictions on freedom of speech or assembly, although they may certainly be questionable..Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

So you say that KGB practices which were criticised by the US for half a century, today being implemented in the US are acceptable and pretty good, and doesn't strip status of a democratic country from the US?Vlad fedorov 16:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

"The government provides some space for freedom of assembly and association. However, legislation passed in 2002 gives the authorities the right to suspend political parties or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) whose members are accused of extremism. Critics argue that the law offers an excessively broad definition of extremism, giving the government great latitude to suppress legitimate opposition political activities. Protests by pensioners against the social benefits reform in January-February were met with arrests and detentions in many regions of Russia."Ultramarine 09:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This legislation provides that NGO should publish publicly their sources of financing. It is very hard for Freedom House to publish in Russian that it is financed directly by the orders of the US president and US congress and publishes biased reports on human rights in Russia paid by the US politicians such as Donald Rumsfeld.Vlad fedorov 10:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

FH does not take "orders". Again, they have been very critical of the US on many issues.Ultramarine 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't takes orders of its Board of Directors memeber Donald Rumsfeld, or its former Director (former CIA boss) Woolsey. You may gather full circus with such statements. Please, publish right here 'criticism' of Guantanamo affair and Abu Greib by FH. I haven't found anything but glorification of the US in their US report for 2006.Vlad fedorov 12:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Added a link.Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Pensioners were jailed? Are you joking? Only on the Moon.Vlad fedorov 10:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Now, regarding Gore, he did get more votes and did not become president due to the way votes are counted. However, he accepted this and this can only happen if the race is tight.Ultramarine 09:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the news reports filed when stop of vote recount was ordered, majority of direct votes were for Gore. But considering that in the US there are no direct elections and each state has it own cost of votes (is given a census of votes), majority of such census (indirect) votes were for Bush. How that happens that you don't know the specifics of your electoral system.Vlad fedorov 10:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I have not stated anything againt this. This can still only happen if the the race is tight.Ultramarine 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If it could happen, then the US are not democratic country at all. If minority could rule the majority it's not a democracy.Vlad fedorov 12:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Although questionable, this rarely happens.Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

So if you acknowledge it happens, how could reconciliate it with the status of the US as a democratic country? We should write that sometimes US is a democratic country, then, which is a shame for US.Vlad fedorov 12:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of the time there is no problem, and if a minority should "win", it is only by a small margin. The system could be changed anytime but have this never been an important issues for the parties or the public, at least until now.Ultramarine 12:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Then you say that it's OK, that the US for eight years is ruled by a man who was elected by the minority, who takes decisions not supported by the majority, and who forces his minority opinion above the majority, who took decision to execute Saddam by handing him over to scaffold, who ruled to send more troops in Iraq, who doesn't pull out from Iraq? Well, US guys may have not 'big personal problems' with that actually, but they cannot claim they live in a democratic country, even according to the Ancient Greece standarts.Vlad fedorov 04:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Bush was re-elected in 2004 with a majority vote. Even in the first election, it was never a show election, he come very close to losing. Invading Iraq may have been stupid, but being a democracy does not exclude wars. Only a minority of male slave-owners had the vote in Athens. See also this: [17]Ultramarine 04:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

What about previous four years of minority elected Bush? Was this democratic country? Your phrase that 'being democrayc doesn't exclude wars' contradicts to the international law. War is a crime of agression. Punishment for aggression is hanging, according to Nurneberg Tribunal Statute. In Ancient Greece only male citizens of Polis (City, town, etc) had the vote, apart from Sparta. By classic Greek Democracy we contemplate Athens Polis rules, not Sparta, not Corinth.Vlad fedorov 06:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I have decided to answer in one place to limit confusion and conserve time and energy. See bottom of page.Ultramarine 07:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Some more "Amendments to the electoral law introduced in 2005 raised the threshold for political parties for entering the State Duma from 5 to 7 percent; banned the formation of electoral coalitions; and granted party leaders unlimited control over the behavior of rank-and-file legislators. In practice, these changes will make it almost impossible for the parties outside Kremlin control to enter the State Duma."Ultramarine 10:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Just subjective allegations. Who is their author? We have in our Parlament more than five political parties. It is fact. How many political parties are represented in the US congress? Why Republican Texas Army pursuing independence of Texas is not represented in US Congress, or Ku Klux Klan? Just two parties. It is another fact. You want to say two parties are better than five?Vlad fedorov 12:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair point. Personally, I would classify Russia as "Parially Free", similar to say Malaysia which also tightly controls the press. Putin is certainly much better than an outright dictator like Stalin and his Gulags. I think I can summarize the criticisms like this: In Russia Putin will decide who replaces him years in advance. This is not possible in the US.Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you think that it is Putin who would decide on his succesor, then you are terribly wrong. Your US propaganda education blinds you. Russian people would vote for the new president, not Putin. Russia is a member of OSCE and Council of Europe. Russia has signed human rights conventions which United States refuses to sign like European Human Rights Convention and Additional protocols to the Convenants of Civil, Political and Social rights of the Individual. Russia is monitored by both OSCE and Council of Europe and its elections, although without single flaw, are recognized by these organizations. Russia has signed also International Criminal Court, which is evaded by the US, because they wage wars in the Middle East. You are completely biased by disinformation of CIA. Sometimes I think that americans are worse than Soviet ideologists.Vlad fedorov 12:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

All the television channels will support whoever Putin supports and opposing groups will be harrased in various ways. But make an interesting point. I will to find what these organizations say about the past election.Ultramarine 12:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Meanwhile, FH is not the only one to criticze Russia. See this: AmenstyHuman Rights WatchUltramarine 12:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok man. I watch Euronews, BBC, CNN everyday - and I actually couldn't see anything else about Russia, but criticism of Putin. If Russian media channels would also be playing the same orchestra I would hammer my TV down, really. We are zombied by the criticism of Putin everyday on every foereign TV, Radio channel, Internet. So what's a problem there? I don't see any problems here for any Russian. If he wants to listen to, watch, read only Putin criticism - he has every opportunity today.Vlad fedorov 22:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have waited for this argument of yours. Should we also bring to the attention that Amnesty International is headed by the former MI5 boss? Should I publish who finances them and who are their bosses? Remember, that when someone in Amnesty International decided to report on Guantanamo, their management ordered to cancel this report? I have personally seen this news on BBC5 channel while being in the UK.Vlad fedorov 13:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is OSCE: Final Report on the Presidential Election in the Russian Federation, 14 March 2004."While on a technical level the election was organized with professionalism, particularly on the part of the Central Election Commission (CEC), the process overall did not adequately reflect principles necessary for a healthy democratic election. The election process failed to meet important commitments concerning treatment of candidates by the State-controlled media on a non-discriminatory basis, equal opportunities for all candidates and secrecy of the ballot. Essential elements of the OSCE commitments for democratic elections, such as a vibrant political discourse and meaningful pluralism, were lacking."Ultramarine 12:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you also cite here excerpts from the OSCE report on Azerbaijan presedential elections where Ilham Aliev, son of former President - KGB general, was claimed to be elected without any violations. OSCE is a political organization made up today of former USSR sattelites like Poland, Czech Republic, Albania, Georgia, Azerbaijan. They just use the chance to bite their former master in order to receive new bone (grants, financial aid) from the US.Vlad fedorov 13:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

We are discussing Russia. If arguing for a grand conspiracy, then it is not meaningful to argue, because then every view or arguments will be invalidated as part of the conspiracy. See conspiracy theory.Ultramarine 13:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

By conspiracy you mean Russia currently is admired and revered by these countries? You again use cheap sophisms in order to weaken my arguments. Fallouts of Russia with Georgia, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic and even Hungary are just on the surface. Everyone who is acknowledged with EU and Council of Europe politics knows that these new EU members are agents and followers of the US agenda both in the internal and external EU policy. These are just news headers that could read in Financial Times, Guardian and other old EU members newspapers. Labelling it 'conspiracy' may work only for ignorant and uneducated readers and opponents. Russia has critisized OSCE for a long time for its current extremly political charachter, although it was created in order to cooperate in human rights and democracy promotion among states. Putin's speech at recent Munich Conference is just one out of many examples. There is no conspiracy against Russia, actually, but there is great desire of the US to contaminate (detente - french) development of Russian economy and political influence lost after the communist collapse. US and EU don't want to have powerful economic and political competitor before them. They don't want to loose economic and political competition to Russia. This is a thing different to conspiracy. I understand your desire to live in World number one country, but please understand that Russia like many other countries also wants to be number one. And unlike those many other countries it has a chance - it's still 1/7th of Earth surface. And even geopolitically (Brzezinsky) we have more chances than the US.Vlad fedorov 15:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of this discussion is somewhat irrelevant for article purposes - Freedom House does what it does and that gets reported on here - the article isn't the place to make primary arguments for or against their methodology or conclusions. Presumably their views on Russia have created enough notable and sourced discussion out there to be reported on as well, but that isn't quite the same thing. - David Oberst 12:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree.Ultramarine 12:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

So Freedom House does disinformation and we can't even dicsuss objectivity, validity and accuracy of its allegations. Very democratic!!! But, anyway, I would like to introduce POV's of other countries (including Cuban government) on Freedom House. I think it's fair for all POV on FH to be presented in the article. If Freedom House has the right to publish its dubious ratings, then its fair to write what other people think about such ratings.Vlad fedorov 16:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Validity and reliability of FH activities, reports are pertinent and relevant to FH. They are governed by CIA officials and politicians, they are financed by US government. And they claim they are independent? It contradicts even to simple rules of Logic.Vlad fedorov 12:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That is good points. On the the other hand, they have also criticzed the US. I will repeat my view regarding Russia. Personally, I would classify Russia as "Parially Free", similar to say Malaysia which also tightly controls the press. Putin is certainly much better than an outright dictator like Stalin and his Gulags. I think I can summarize the criticisms like this: In Russia Putin will decide who replaces him years in advance. This is not possible in the US.Ultramarine 12:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I would also personally classify the US as "Partially Free" because of Gore/Bush campaign. Defintely Mr. Bush is much better than Mr. Hitler, because there are no still concentration camps and gas chambers in Iraq for the Sunnis. But we have scaffolds there already and Shiite death squads. I could summarize this like: "In the US, Pentagon and Military Industry decides who would be elected as a President". This is not possible in Russia.Vlad fedorov 12:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Validity and reliability of FH activities, reports are pertinent and relevant to FH - but it is not the job of Wikipedia to pass editorial judgement on FH's validity and reliability, any more than on the validity and reliability of, say, the Flat Earth Society. Obviously comments like "Absurd!!!" have no place in the article, while "Some of the these goals seem to contradict to the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states, which is a basic principle of international law" appears as original research unless sourced to some sort of summary of notable opinion on Freedom House. I'm sure they've made Russia unhappy enough that there should be a useful paragraph to be written and sourced on the reaction, but this isn't it. Even if there was a concept of "international law" that should somehow restrain FH from saying and doing things that peeve the Russian government, it isn't for a Wikipedia article to come to that conclusion and scold them on our own hook. - David Oberst 13:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but denouncing of McCarthyism by FH should be supported by the sources, for I personally do not believe that hard-nut republicans denounced it then.Vlad fedorov 16:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyediting

I made some copyedits and other changes - while you are fighting it out over the article content please try and avoid wiping these out by wholesale reversions to earlier drafts. There are some more things that need rewriting (phrases like "trained under U.S. ideology" is a giggler, and you topple governments, not Revolutions), but I suspect the criticism sections will be so unstable I haven't bothered. - David Oberst 12:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorfileonline

From WP:RS, self published sources

Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or comments on blogs, should not be used as sources. This is in part because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them, and in part because there is no editorial oversight or third-party fact-checking. See self-published sources for exceptions.

Terrorfileonline is a Havana based Wiki, run by the Cuban governemnt,

and as such does not satisfy the WP:V and WP:RS guidelines. Unless a good case can be made for its inclusion, I am going to remove the section. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 15:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Would you be so kind as to provide the evidence of this? Vlad fedorov 15:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure

Whois on TERRORFILEONLINE.ORG

• Domain ID:D110016802-LROR
• Domain Name:TERRORFILEONLINE.ORG
• Created On:26-Dec-2005 19:13:50 UTC
• Last Updated On:25-Feb-2006 04:41:18 UTC
• Expiration Date:26-Dec-2007 19:13:50 UTC
• Sponsoring Registrar:BB Online UK Limited (R20-LROR)
• Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
• Registrant ID:1136971266o50127
• Registrant Name:Instituto Cubano del Libro
• Registrant Organization:ICL
• Registrant Street1:Calle OB4Reilly Nro. 4 esq. a
• Registrant City:Habana Vieja
• Registrant State/Province:C. de La Habana
• Registrant Postal Code:10100
• Registrant Country:GB
• Registrant Phone:+44.537862809120
• Registrant Phone Ext.:01
• Registrant FAX:+44.537862809120
• Registrant FAX Ext.:
• Registrant Email:jiribilla@icl.cult.cu

The Instituto Cubano del Libro is a division of the Cuban Ministry of Culture. 15:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I just wonder what about unsourced statement in this article? You mean unsourced statements by anonymous users do not violate WP:V and WP:RS? Unless a good case can be made for keeping unsupported statements in this article, I am going to remove all of them.Vlad fedorov 16:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Add a ^{[citation needed]} and I will add a source if I can find one. Otherwise it should certainly be removed.Ultramarine 16:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A good reason for keeping the Terrorfileonline material is that it presents criticism and revela sinformation about FH that is hidden from the general public. No one could present the evidence that this site is run by Fidel Castro. Therefore it is valid as altenrative POV, which can't be eliminated.Vlad fedorov 16:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are trying to make a WP:POINT by threatening to remove all information in the article contributed from IP editors, then you are skating on very thin ice. The guidelines are very clear, no Wikis can be used as sources in articles. If you have an issue with any statement, put a citation needed tag by it. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

First I want to make it clear that I do not threaten to anyone. i just point out that unsourced statements violate Wikipedia policies. Second, point of view of Cuban Government on Freedom House is valid as point of view of Cuban government. By the way classification of Freedom House of Russia as not being an electoral democracy is a point of view of Freedom House unsupported by the evidence in the legal meaning of that word. I would cite that it is an opinion of Cuban government. And such material won't be violation Policies you talk about.Vlad fedorov 16:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

But Terrorfileonline is a Wiki based publication, and as such it authors are unknown. That is why it is a violation of WP:RS and WP:V. No where on the website "Terrorfileonline" does it claim that it is speaking on behalf of the Cuban government; that is an inference I drew from the Whois search. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by Wiki-based publication? The website is not a Wiki engine employed, is not a messageboard, blog or forum. Like anonymous ratings of Freedom House it doesn't have an author, but then what? The website is run by the Cuban government and we could claim this as a source.[User:Vlad fedorov|Vlad fedorov]] 17:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It states very clearly on the front page of the site that it is "Powered by MediaWiki", making it a Wiki. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I really haven't noticed it. But Wikipedia WP:V says, I cite Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

As could be clearly seen fromt the cited passage, there is no any prohibition for citing Wiki-engine based sites. As for 'self-published' pattern (term), as you actually don't know who has written this material, how then you could claim that it is self-published? If you could tell that it is self-piblished, then you admit that the website was created by Cuban Government. If you admit that it was published by Cuban government we could cite it as Cuban government POV.Vlad fedorov 17:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the thing, its not what you believe , its not what I believe , its what can be attributed to a reliable source . There is no reliable source claiming that Terrorfileonline is published by the Cuban gov’t, it a inference I have made through the WHOIS search. But cant I cite that as evidence that it’s a publication of the Cuban Gov’t? No because that is Original research, I cannot string together independent pieces of information to make a new or novel conclusion based off that information. I will reference the relevant passage in WP:RS that states unequivocally that the use of materials from Wiki’s is a violation of the policy:

Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or comments on blogs, should not be used as sources. This is in part because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them, and in part because there is no editorial oversight or third-party fact-checking. See self-published sources for exceptions.

Ok, I see then. Stupid Cuban government couldn't even choose more good website CMS like Mambo or PHP Nuke and to compose a few pseudonims for their articles in order to advance their point. Ok. Peace. Agreed.Vlad fedorov 17:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New material on Cuban activities by FH

I have found more interesting material about FH involvement in US policy and CIA activities there http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/140.html. We can't though copy/paste this, but summarizing may seem to be ok.Vlad fedorov 17:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

http://www.nowaroncuba.org/Organization/Press/US_Ops_against_Cuba.htm

Some more links http://www2.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/CubaSi-January/FreedomHouseFoundation.html

The Time. CONTROVERSY CRASHES THE PARTY http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983137-1,00.html

Mostly looks like personal websites and Cuba based news organisations. The last, the Time article, is hardly critical so I am not sure you want to cite it.Ultramarine 17:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Your sources that Freedom House denounced McCarthyism are also self-published in a sense that it is Freedom House allegation. Of course all criminals claim in the prison that they are innocent. Should we be so naive as to expect confessions from FH that it has financed coup d'etats, mujahedins (talibs) and bloody revolutions?Vlad fedorov 17:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Freedom House is quite proud to admit its role in the overthrow of various dictatorships. The spread of democracy is one of its stated goals. Personal websites not reliable sources, but for example a Cuban news organisation could be cited, of course mentioning the Cuban origin.Ultramarine 17:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, then it actually is proud of waging aggression and its violations of international law. Financing terrorists like mujahedin in Afghanistan is a crime currently in the US.Vlad fedorov 17:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What international law regarding organizations is you refering to? Something in Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Ultramarine 17:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No. As you are not lawyer, I would tell you... There are universal principles of Public International Law. They are unwritten and are declared often in Declarations and Treaties. They are referred to as Jus Cogens. Make a search on these Latin words. These Principles cannot be departed or changed. Here is the most commonly taught list:

(a) The principle that States shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations, (b) The principle that States shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, (c) The duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter, (d) The duty of States to co-operate with one another in accordance with the Charter, (e) The principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, (f) The principle of sovereign equality of States, (g) The principle that States shall fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the UN Charter. See here in more detail [18].Vlad fedorov 19:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(a) FH is not a state. (b) Every state interferes in other states by for example spying.Ultramarine 19:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's not a state. And Hitler wasn't a state, and SS wasn't a state. However they were hanged or sentenced for violations of the unwritten principles of international law at Nurenburg Trial. The thing is - nobody cares if FH is a state. If it crosses the boundaries of the international law (Jus Cogens), then it is outlaw. Moreover, I highly doubt definition of FH as an NGO. It is financed by the government and run by the government officials. Perhaps, it is charachteristic for the US to name war - an operation 'Enduring Freedom' and to name governmental bodies like FH - NGO.Vlad fedorov 22:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

SS personal was charged with various specific crimes, not crossing a state border.Ultramarine 04:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean Oswentsim concentration camp in Poland where millions were exterminated was actually in Germany???? Vlad fedorov 05:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There were concentration camps both outside and inside Germany. Regardless, the SS were not charged with crossing a state border, but with other crimes.Ultramarine 06:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

In order to gather earlier discussions in one place: In Athens only a minority of the males could vote, excluding slaves and metics. Again, regarding the Bush first election it was never a show election and Bush came close to losing. In the second he had a majority. Even if the Iraq War was a war of aggression (dubious), this has nothing to do with if the US was a democracy then. The Nurenburg trials was for specific crimes, not some general principle of interference. Again see [19]. Democracy, as defined by for example FH, causes faster economic growth and many other benefits. Almost all rich countries are democracies, except a few nations gaining wealth by natural resources. But see the Resource curse.Ultramarine 08:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)