Dominican Republic has a partially-free press: Watchdog

Washington.- U.S.-based rights watchdog says press freedomin the world declined in 2015 to its lowest level in 12 years, under heightenedpressure from a combination of political, criminal, and terrorist elements.

"The forces against press freedom were strongest inthe Middle East and Turkey, where governments and militants groups pressuredjournalists and media outlets to take sides, creating a ‘with or against us’climate," Washington-based Freedom House said in its annual report,released on April 27.

In its report, Freedom Of The Press 2016: The Battle For The Dominant Message,theorganization said “this time Chile joined Costa Rica and Uruguay as the onlyLatin American among the 62 countries with a free press, like the UnitedStates.”

Among the 71 nations with a partially-free press figuresArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay,Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Meanwhile, the organization kept Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico,Ecuador and Nicaragua as the only nations on the continent among 66 in theworld without a free press.