Report: Freedom on the decline worldwide

Freedom House' annual report for 2015, released this week, is grimly titled, "Discarding Democracy: Return to the Iron Fist." The study found that freedom declined in 61 countries over the last year, while only 32 nations are more free now than they were at the start of 2014. This disturbing trend is now nine years strong:

"In a new and disquieting development," the report notes, "a number of countries lost ground due to state surveillance, restrictions on internet communications, and curbs on personal autonomy." One bright spot was Tunisia, which in 2014 held free, legitimate elections and became the only Arab country among the "free" nations of the world in the last four decades.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.