Freedom House: Kosovo is "not free"
The 2008 Freedom House report has classified Kosovo as "not free".
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, January 15, 2009
The annual survey gives a country one of three grades, "free", "partly free" or "not free", assigning points on political and civil liberties with a rating of 1 indicating the highest degree of freedom and 7 the lowest.
Kosovo is the worst performer in the region, the only one in the Balkans graded as "not free" with a political liberties score of 6, and a civil liberties score of 5.
The report singles out ethnic tensions as a main issue, while noting that "Kosovo lacks a functioning criminal justice system." It says "gender inequality is a serious problem" and "in many rural areas, women are effectively disenfranchised by "family voting," in which the male head of a household casts ballots for the entire family." It notes domestic violence and discrimination against sexual minorities as problems.
Freedom House has rated Serbia, from which Kosovo declared a unilateral secession, as "free".
