10 Worst Human Rights Countries in 2020

In today’s topic, we will discuss the worst human rights countries in 2020.

Protection against enslavement and right to education sound like a normal thing that every human being possesses, but it seems that even in the 21^st century, the situation in some parts of the world is not that bright. Apart from these two, freedom of speech, right to a fair trial, protection of physical integrity (which now seem more familiar in terms of not being respected even in liberal countries) all belong to human rights. But of course, that is not the end of the list; there are many more socio-economic and political aspects that are defined as parts of human rights.

With no detailed insight into all of these important matters of human rights, we will rather see here some statistics made by people and institutions concerned for this issue. Nevertheless, on the similar matter as the subject of our current article, you might be interested in human rights violations by country ranking, which can be found in 18 worst countries violating human rights in 2017. And for current human right violations check out the 11 Worst Asian Countries for Human Rights Violation.

Now, we have seen that human rights are viewed through a specter of different aspects of human lives which depend on the socio-economical and political situation of the countries. For our research on human rights ranking by country, we have taken into account The Human Freedom Index for each country for 2019 as a result of research conducted by CATO Institute. This index was obtained by exploring and combining the results of multiple data regarding 79 different areas of human freedom including legal system and property rights, religion, access to sound money, regulation of credit, labor and business, expression and information, etc. The countries were ranked here from the best to worst. We have combined this data with rankings of political and civil freedom made by Freedom House. Here the ranking was made by country rating from 1 (best) to 7 (worst) as marked in our lists as freedom ranking.

These were our primary ranking system as well since they both had offered the most recent data. Then we have also gone through figures provided by Our World in Data on human rights protection. Here – the higher the value, the worse the human rights violation is (with max value 10). We have also provided the figures on our list just as an additional parameter. Even though this parameter would probably show as better for our discussion about the worst human rights countries in 2021, we didn’t choose it as a primary one since the data comes from the previous year. And surely for further info on countries, we have consulted human rights Watch World Report for 2020.

Having set the criteria, let’s check out which the worst human rights countries in 2020 are:

10. Algeria

Freedom ranking:  5.5

Human rights violation: 7.7

In Algeria, freedom of expression and assembly are being repressed more and more by the government with inevitable censorship of media.

9. Egypt

Freedom ranking:  5.5

Human rights violation: 9.7

The government of Egypt has accused thousands of people of terrorism, and around 15,500 civilians among which 150 children were sent military court.

8. Burundi

Freedom ranking:  6.5

Human rights violation: 8.1

In this country, violent acts such as enforced disappearances, sexual assaults, and arbitrary arrests are actually committed by the members of intelligence services, army, and even police! So surely you can’t feel safe in Burundi, one of the worst human rights countries in 2020.

7. Congo

Freedom ranking:  6.5

Human rights violation: 10

The Democratic Republic of Congo seems to be far from its name when it comes to human rights. Government is successfully repressing freedom of expression, political opposition, democracy activists, etc.

6. Iran

Freedom ranking:  6

Human rights violation: 9.3

Freedom of expression is just one of the fundamental problems concerning human rights in Iran. Many journalists and online media activists are prosecuted for “propaganda against the government,” or “acting against national security.”

5. Yemen

Freedom ranking:  6.5

Human rights violation: 9

The armed conflicts are the major cause of Yemen being among the worst human rights countries in 2020. Only in November last year, around (better said at least) 5,300 civilians were killed and around 8,900 wounded in conflicts with Saudi Arabia.

4. Libya

Freedom ranking:  6.5

Human rights violation: 8.1

Libya is having many internal armed conflicts between armed groups and militia which has a great impact on people, having around 200,000 people displaced and lacking basic human rights.

3. Venezuela

Freedom ranking:  6.5

Human rights violation: 7.8

Apart from many other, one of the main problems that make Venezuela among worst human rights country is the shortage of medical supplies which makes the basic medical care impossible for many Venezuelans.

2. The Central African Republic

Freedom ranking: 7

Human rights violation: 9.5

Apart from having the high level of violating basic human rights, many cities of Central African Republic are in control of armed groups which kill civilians, sexually assault women and burn villages despite the efforts of the UN.

1. Syria

Freedom ranking: 7

Human rights violation: 9.9

According to all parameters, the most recent or for the previous period, it seems that Syria is the worst human rights country in 2020. It is probably not necessary mentioning the situation in this country since it is always the hot topic on world’s news, but it’s worth mentioning that around 400,000 Syrians have died in conflicts since 2011, and around 6 million had been displaced, and 5 million seeking refuge.

This wraps it up for our list of worst human rights countries in 2020.