Countries with restrictions on freedom of speech rank highest in annual corruption perception index
Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perception Index reveals high levels of corruption in over two-thirds of countries, with the UK among the few that managed to improve their rating.
Last year's CPI showed the majority of countries were dragging their feet when it came to combating corruption in their public sector, having made little to no progress. It also laid bare how it was those territories with the lowest degree of protection for press and NGO's that tended to score worst.
Unsurprisingly, almost all the journalists killed since 2012 were targeted in corrupt countries.
"No activist or reporter should have to fear for their lives when speaking out against corruption," said Patricia Moreira, managing director of Transparency International. "Given current crackdowns on both civil society and the media worldwide, we need to do more to protect those who speak up."
Brazil’s 2017 corruption perception index skyrocketed, sending the country tumbling 17 positions down the ranking to 96th place out of 180 countries. Over the past six years, 20 journalists died in the South America's largest country, a direct result of their investigations into local-government corruption and drug-related crime.
On a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 denotes a 'very corrupt' environment, two thirds of the countries have scored below 50. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia ranked the lowest with scores of 14,12 and nine, respectively, whereas New Zealand achieved the highest score, obtaining 89 points.
Meanwhile, Spain, Hungary and Chipre experienced the sharpest fall in their respective rankings when compared to the previous year, with the former barely reaching the 50 point mark, having shed eight points since 2012.
When presenting the Spanish corruption results, Beltrán Gambier, a member of TI's Executive Committee in Spain, took the opportunity to criticise harsh censorship in the Mediterranean country.
In particular, he attacked what he labeled as an attack on artist Eduardo López Puertas's freedom of speech rights after he was asked by the director of the Ifema institute to remove his photographic exhibition of the Catalan political and social leaders who had been imprisoned for organising an illegal referendum, followed by a unilateral declaration of independence.
On the other hand, over the prior six years, countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal had managed to significantly improve their CPI significantly.
So too the UK, who over that same time horizon saw its results improve eight points to 82.