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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Americans, Especially Women, Feel Less Free. They're Not Wrong.
People around the world are, by and large, satisfied with the freedom they enjoy in their everyday lives. The exceptions to this trend are Americans—women, in particular. This could be the set-up for commentary from Euro-pundits and U.N. officials about American political dysfunction or the evils of our culture except for an important complication: By the reckoning of several independent organizations, the world is getting less free, and folks here at home are closer to the truth than are our overseas cousins. "For the third year in a row, Americans are less satisfied with their personal freedom than the rest of the world, including their peers in other wealthy, market-based economies," Gallup's Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray reported of survey data on May 14. "While Americans have been less satisfied in recent years, satisfaction with personal freedom has remained higher and steady worldwide. A median of 81% across 142 countries and territories expressed satisfaction with their freedom in 2024." Specifically, Americans' satisfaction "with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives" started falling after 2020, when it was 85 percent; this was comparable to the peak 87-percent median recorded in the 38 developed, democratic countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and a bit higher than the 80-percent median recorded globally. U.S. satisfaction peaked several times over the past two decades at 87 percent, making 2020 unremarkable. As of 2024, after a brief and mild pandemic-era dip, OECD residents' satisfaction with their freedom stands at 86 percent and the global median is at 81 percent. Satisfaction with freedom among Americans, by contrast, has plunged to 72 percent. Americans are rather less satisfied than their peers around the world with the freedom they enjoy in their lives. As it turns out, folks in the U.S. have a better handle on the real-world situation. "Global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024," Freedom House noted in its Freedom in the World 2025 report. The report called out backsliding among almost twice as many nations that slid further into authoritarianism as opposed to those that improved respect for liberty. It highlighted attacks on political dissidents and candidates, pointing out that "in France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others, extremism or partisan grievances motivated physical assaults on individuals campaigning for office." And it also noted that "elected leaders in democracies are increasingly seeking to undermine checks on their power, focusing their assaults on the media, anticorruption authorities, and the courts. These attacks endanger both democracy and basic freedoms." Likewise, the Economist's Democracy Index 2024 warns that "governments and political parties in many democracies have become estranged from citizens." In response to upstart political movements, the establishments in many seemingly stable democracies "do everything in their power to keep the populists out and to present them as illegitimate or even a threat." The biggest declines have been seen in electoral process and pluralism and, especially, civil liberties which, the Economist notes, have not recovered from pandemic responses "when governments responded to the coronavirus threat with national lockdowns and an unprecedented withdrawal of liberties." Political elites are maintaining their forms of democracy, so long as nobody really challenges them or wants to make their own choices. The Fraser Institute's Human Freedom Index 2024 agrees "freedom deteriorated severely in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Most areas of freedom fell, including significant declines through 2022 in freedom of movement, expression, and association and assembly; and in sound money." Fraser sees some small improvements since then but adds that freedom "remained well below its pre-pandemic level." Overall, "87.4 percent of the world's population saw a fall in human freedom from 2019 to 2022." That's not to say some countries haven't improved—a few have, in dramatic ways. And even in countries that have slid in respect for freedom, the fall isn't across the board. People may see improved safeguards for specific liberties that they value. But if you're comparing where we are now to where we were less than a decade ago, it's fair to say the world is less free, and that includes developed countries with established democratic political systems. Americans are outliers in the Gallup survey because we're right. Interestingly, American women are particularly less "satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives." While men's satisfaction with the state of freedom dropped from 88 percent in 2020 to 73 percent in 2023 and blipped up to 77 percent last year, women's satisfaction steadily declined from 82 percent in 2020 to 66 percent last year. The drop among women from 2021 to 2022 was especially sharp, and while Gallup didn't ask about the specifics of freedom with which people are satisfied or dissatisfied, the report comments that its "fieldwork in 2022 coincided with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision on abortion rights, a draft of which was leaked to the press on May 2, 2022." Men's and women's responses to the survey were similar before the leak but diverged afterwards. Also, "women's satisfaction dropped most among those who approved of then-President Joe Biden," suggesting progressive women who are most inclined to support reproductive rights suffered the biggest drop in satisfaction with freedom right around the time that Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade's protections for abortion. Controversial, long-debated, and forever in the news, reproductive rights remain a touchstone by which many Americans—women in particular—assess the degree to which they see themselves as free. The more leeway they have to make their own choices about reproductive issues, the more satisfied they are with the state of their freedom. Curtail their ability to make choices and they become less satisfied. This issue is and will remain a major factor in our politics (consider the weekend bombing of a fertility clinic, apparently by an "anti-natalist" terrorist who opposed bringing more people into the world). That said, reproductive issues are certainly not the only factor. U.S. men and women alike reported feeling less free before the leak and then release of the Dobbs decision. Dobbs may well have accelerated that decline, especially for women, but Americans already reported feeling substantially less free even before reproductive rights were elevated back to prominence in 2022. Unfortunately, Americans have it right. Governments around the world have made many of us less free than we were just a few years ago. The post Americans, Especially Women, Feel Less Free. They're Not Wrong. appeared first on
Shafaq News
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Iraqi activist released after backlash over protest-related sentencing
Shafaq News/ An appeals court in Iraq's Babil province on Sunday ordered the release of activist Durgham Majid and several other protesters, hours after a lower court sentenced them to four months in prison over their role in anti-government demonstrations. The reversal followed the withdrawal of a legal complaint by Iraqi lawmaker Dunia al-Shammari, whose case had led to the convictions. A judicial source told Shafaq News the release order was issued by the Babil Appeals Court and applies to all 11 defendants. The initial sentencing sparked public outcry and fresh protests. Dozens of demonstrators blocked the entrance to the al-Hamza al-Gharbi courthouse earlier in the day, denouncing the ruling as a blow to civil liberties and calling for the immediate release of those detained. The case comes amid a broader crackdown on dissent in Iraq, where rights groups say authorities are increasingly turning to the judiciary to silence activism. In a separate ruling on Sunday, a court in the southern province of Dhi Qar sentenced prominent protest figure Ihsan Abu Kawthar to 15 years in prison for the killing of a fellow demonstrator. The Dhi Qar Criminal Court found him guilty under Article 406 of the Iraqi Penal Code, which covers premeditated murder, a security source said. Abu Kawthar, a leading voice in the 2019 'Tishreen' protest movement in Nasiriyah, was arrested on March 8 following a raid on his home by local police. He was later transferred to the General Intelligence Directorate for further interrogation. Human rights monitors warn that the sentencing of both Majid and Abu Kawthar reflects a deepening judicial clampdown on Iraq's civil society, particularly in 2024 and early 2025. Amnesty International, in a recent submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, flagged Iraq's failure to implement prior human rights commitments and cited widespread arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force, and lack of accountability in detention centers. Freedom House rated Iraq as 'Not Free' in its Freedom in the World 2025 report, giving the country a score of 31 out of 100 and pointing to severe restrictions on free speech, assembly, and civil society operations. In January, the UN Human Rights Council's review of Iraq's record acknowledged limited progress but underscored ongoing threats to freedom of expression and the safety of civil society actors. Rights advocates say the recent legal measures targeting protesters reflect a coordinated effort by Iraqi authorities to suppress dissent ahead of upcoming provincial elections and amid ongoing political turbulence.
