Only four of the region’s 49 countries are rated as having free media by Freedom House in its Freedom of the Press 2014 report. The remaining 45 countries were almost evenly split between partly free (22) and not free (23). Reporters Without Borders found that only one country in the region, Namibia, was in a good situation, and five were rated as being in a satisfactory situation. The rest ranged from having noticeable problems to being in difficult situations, with the exceptions of Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea, which are rated as very serious situations.

This region draws the poorest ratings in the world from Freedom House. No country is rated free, and only two (Georgia and Moldova) are rated partly free. The remaining 10 are rated not free. “It is notable that three of the eight worst press freedom abusers¬—Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan--are found in Eurasia,” Freedom House says. Reporters Without Borders puts four countries in the category of having noticeable problems and all the rest as being in difficult or very serious situations.

Thirteen countries in this region are rated as having a free press by Freedom House. The rest are rated partly free (15 countries) or not free (5 countries: Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, and Mexico). In the view of Reporters Without Borders, only Costa Rica and Jamaica deserve the highest rating among the countries of this region (“good situation”). Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela are considered to be in difficult situations, and Cuba is in a very serious situation.