The room for political dissent is continuing to narrow around the Middle East, as authoritarian governments try to suppress opponents and critics. The biggest fall was in Mauritania, which dropped seven places to reach 55 in the index, out of 180 countries. The index has been produced by RSF since 2002 and is designed to measure the level of freedom available to journalists. The organisation reckons that media freedom today is the worst it has ever seen, noting that “media freedom has retreated wherever the authoritarian strongman model has triumphed." Israeli media is an arena for lively debate, but RSF says that Israel Defence Forces often curtail the abilities of Palestinian journalists to work freely, especially when covering demonstrations.

Source: Forbes April 26, 2017 17:37 UTC