Freedom of the Press 2012: Breakthroughs and Pushback in the Middle East

In this annual index, Freedom House ranks 197 countries and territories based on the situation of press freedom. Improvements to media freedoms in the Middle East and North Africa, namely in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, were the most significant findings in the 2012 release. The improvements were accompanied by positive changes in countries outside of the MENA region including Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Zambia. Despite such gains, many obstacles remained for press freedom in countries like China, Russia, Venezuela, Syria and Iran, which was ranked 192 out of 197. At the time of the report, Iran had the most journalists behind bars (42).