6月28日聽力：亞歐大陸的民主近況退步
WASHINGTON— Democracy is under attack inEurope and Eurasia. Freedom House says 12 of the29 countries it assessed in its new report receiveddowngrades in their level of democracy - especiallyin parts of Europe and Eurasia. And the group laysmuch of the blame on Russia.
Sylvana Habdank-Kolaczkowska is project director of the report titled "Nations in Transit", “Thebig story for the 2015 edition is not surprisingly Russia’s escalation of and new forms ofaggression internationally and domestically,”
The report uses various factors like the electoral process and independent media in making itsdeterminations. It says Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine threatens both.
“Russia is a driver of the decline in Eurasia, particularly in areas of civil society, and that hasreally accelerated in the last few years,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.
But that measure of civil society – the people’s ability to gather under a common banner – issomething that helps bolster Ukraine’s standing in the report, even if only to the level thatexisted before the regime of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
“Civil society was always and remains extremely vibrant in Ukraine. The fact that that was theone rating that didn’t really decline under Yanukovych is something that other authoritarianleaders have noticed, because they realize you can do everything else right but if you don’tcrack down, people will still agitate for what they deserve,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.
Which, she says, points back to Russia’s involvement in not only the decline of other nations’rankings but in its own as well.
“It needs a change in the character of the leadership. It needs a regime that is no longeraggressively against all forms of democratization,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.
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