Hong Kong’s Degree of Freedom Continued to Decline, Scored Just 42 Points out of 100

Hong Kong's degree of freedom score descended in steps from 2017 to 2022 according to the Freedom House survey provided by the Freedom in the World 2023 report. Compiled by The Epoch Times

Hong Kong’s political rights and civil liberties have further deteriorated, with the score provided by Freedom House, a U.S. NGO, showing it is going down repeatedly. In Freedom House’s latest Freedom in the World 2023 report, Hong Kong’s degree of freedom score is only 42 out of 100.

The latest report reviews Hong Kong’s situation in 2022. Hong Kong scored 10 out of 40 for “Political Rights” and 32 out of 60 for “Civil Liberty,” giving a total score of 42. It is still within the bracket of a “partially free” region, with a total score of just one point lower than the year before. Looking back at the previous year (2021), Hong Kong had 52 points. For other years it was 55 in 2020, 59 in both 2019 and 2018, and 61 in the 2017 report.

HK’s Score on Degree of Freedom Dropped 25 Points in 16 Years

In the 2022 degree of freedom report, Hong Kong dropped by nine points from that of the previous year, which was the third highest drop in the world that year, second only to Myanmar, which experienced a military coup, and Afghanistan, which was taken over by the Taliban. “Freedom House” also pointed out that in the past 15 years until 2022, Hong Kong’s total score on its degree of freedom report has dropped from 67 to 43, a huge drop of 24 points. This year it fell by another one point.