NEW YORK.- The 2009 annual report of the prestigious France-based group Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF), which monitors the respect of free expression by governments and private institutions, ranks Dominican Republic 98 in its classification and affirms that the country, as well as several European nations, has regressed in that regard.

It’s the worse classification among Latin American countries with allegedly democratic governments.

The study, which also includes Canada and the United States, is based on reports by the national press on real cases involving journalists and the attitude of officials and civil society figures on the flow of information.

It affirms that in the Caribbean, Dominican Republic falls in rank resulting from a high index of violence, harassment and abusive procedures against the media. It states that without having the same amplitude, those two factors, in addition to measures of administrative censorship and the incarceration of a journalist it didn’t identity, led to the lower rating.