Estonia rises to 3rd to 4th place in world press freedom index

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontiers - RSF) placed Estonia along with the Netherlands in the 3rd to 4th place of the world press freedom index released on Wednesday among a total of 179 countries, a significantly better result compared with last year.

In the world press index for 2010 Estonia together with Ireland were in the 8th to 10th place and in 2009 in the sixth place. In 2008 Estonia was in the 4th to 5th place along with Finland and Ireland amd in 2007 Estonia was in the 3rd to 4th place together with Slovakia.

In this year's list the countries with the freest press are Finland and Norway, equally in the 1st and 2nd place. Austria comes and after Estonia and the Netherlands, with Austria in the 5th place.

Iceland and Luxembourg are equal in the 6th and 7th place, Switzerland No 8, Cabo Verde 9th and Canada and Denmark equal at 10th and 11th.

Lithuania with Australia is in the 30th to 31st place and Latvia in the 50th to 51st place together with Trinidad and Tobago. The United States is 47th and Russia is in the 142nd place.

International press freedom index 2011/2012

RFS said in its new report that compared with the previous index the gap between Estonia and the other Baltic countries had widened. If Estonia continues to be at the top of the the wold press freedom list then Lithuanian fell from its 11th to 13th place in 2010 to 20th -31st place an Latvia via from its 30th to 31st place to the 50th to 51st place, The organization said that the Latvian and Lithuanian placings were due to "grotesque judgments and security bodies' interference".

The last places in the list belong to Eritrea (179th), North Korea (176th) and Turkmenistan (177th).

Baltic News Service