The Gambia (-20)
This time around, it seemed The Gambia, a highly repressive country wedged into Senegal in West Africa, could not fall much further in Freedom House's ranking. But the country's mercurial leader, who insists on being called His Excellency President Professor Dr. Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh, found a way to yet again upend expectations. In September, Jammeh, who claims to be able to cure AIDS, announced that he would clear his country's death row by carrying out a rash of executions. In August, nine prisoners, including one woman, were executed by firing squad. According to Freedom House, the defendants lacked access to attorneys, and the government did not inform the prisoners' families of their execution. The country's death row includes former government officials accused of plotting to depose Jammeh, who gained power in a 1994 coup, and the decision to clear death row was widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the country's political opposition.
Guinea-Bissau (-20)
As in Mali, a coup precipitated Guinea-Bissau's backsliding on democratic rights. Unlike Mali, however, Guinea-Bissau has never been held up as a model democracy. The country has seen so many coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974 that experts can't even provide an exact number for the number of times someone has tried to topple the government. And in April it happened again when the army seized power ahead of presidential elections that were likely to propel Prime Minister Carlos Gomes, who had threatened to reduce the size of the military, to power.
By November, Guinea-Bissau, which even before the coup was a popular transit point for South American drugs destined for Europe, had become a hot spot for drug trafficking, and experts now speculate that the coup may have been an attempt by top generals to take control of the highly lucrative drug trade. With a sham government and an army calling the shots behind the scenes, Guinea-Bissau is now, in the words of Freedom House, a country that "has increasingly come to resemble a military narcostate."
Bahrain (-18)
The Persian Gulf kingdom's Arab Spring-inspired protest movement demanding serious political reform has now entered its third year, but the ruling Al Khalifa family shows no signs of ending a brutal crackdown on dissent. In 2012, political repression continued unabated, courts meted out stiff jail sentences to opposition figures, and the government continued to do battle with protesters in the streets. In August, a Bahraini court sentenced human rights activist Nabeel Rajab to three years in jail for attending what it deemed to be an illegal protest. That sentence came on top of a previous verdict that landed Rajab in jail for three months as punishment for posting comments critical of the government on Twitter. Other human rights activists, including Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and Zainab al-Khawaja, have also been jailed. All three activists were named Foreign Policy Global Thinkers in 2012.
The United States has avoided pressuring Bahrain's rulers to implement political reforms as it did with other regional leaders facing democratic uprisings, in part because it maintains a major naval base in the country, but also due to the 800-pound gorilla -- repressive Saudi Arabia -- next door.
Ukraine (-16)
In an era of European politics when few, if any, opposition leaders are sent to jail on politically motivated charges, Ukraine has stubbornly insisted on upholding the continent's tradition. The crackdown began in late 2011 with the conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko on charges that she acted against the national interest in negotiating a gas deal with a price tag above the market rate. The trend continued in 2012 with the conviction of Tymoshenko's ally Valery Ivashchenko, a former acting defense minister, on corruption charges.
Political debate in Ukraine centers on whether the country should embrace Europe and turn West or work in closer cooperation with Russia in the East. That divide is mirrored by a linguistic split, with the eastern part of the country speaking Russian and the western part Ukrainian. It's no surprise, then, that when parliament -- amid fistfights and ugly brawling -- adopted a law that made Russian the country's official language, it was interpreted as a step toward entering Russian orbit. More importantly, the law also risks seriously disadvantaging non-Russian speakers in the country, an issue noted by Freedom House. Concerns over President Viktor Yanukovych's attempts to consolidate power and remove his opposition crystallized in October's parliamentary elections, which the European Union said were marred by irregularities and resulted in Yanukovych's party retaining control.
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