On January 12, 2009, Freedom House released Freedom in the World 2009, its annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey's findings, Armenia is considered as a Partly Free country with limited respect for political rights and civil liberties, which frequently suffers from an environment of corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic and religious strife, and often a setting in which a single political party enjoys dominance despite the facade of limited pluralism.

Armenia's political rights rating declined from 5 to 6 because of obstacles placed in the way of the political opposition during the 2008 presidential election, as well as the violent dispersal of opposition protesters and continued detention of more than 100 people arrested in the aftermath of the voting. Armenia's civil liberties rating remained unchanged, 4. All ratings reflect global events from January 1, 2008, through December 31, 2008. 1 represents the most free and 7 the least free rating.

Freedom in the World 2009 examines the state of freedom in 193 countries and 16 strategic territories. The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2008 and assigns each country a freedom status - free, partly free or not free based on a scoring of performance in key freedoms. Non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union continued their decade-long decline, now ranking below Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on several survey indicators. Russia and Georgia, which went to war over South Ossetia, were among the region's notable declines, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe remains strong, despite setbacks in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world, has been monitoring political rights and civil liberties worldwide since 1972.

For full information on Freedom in the World 2009 Survey Release please visit Freedom House website at http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=445