Author: Human rights measurement initiative
Site of the publication: Human rights measurement initiative
Type of the publication: Article
Date of the publication: February 2020
Call for action on human rights in Liberia
In the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s initial report of Liberia in 2018, the Committee noted that 2017 marked Liberia’s first peaceful and independent transition of power from the administration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to President George Manneh Weah since the second Liberian Civil War ended in 2003. Fulfilling his election promise to respect the right to freedom of the press, President Weah has helped repeal harsh anti-media laws while promoting legislation that aims to foster a freer media environment.
Civil and Political Rights
To produce the civil and political rights scores, HRMI gathers information using an expert opinion survey designed to collect an unvarnished appraisal of human rights practices in the countries sampled. Our team then uses advanced statistical techniques to combine responses, producing scores that are comparable across countries. The scores highlighted in this article are based on respondents’ answers about the year 2018.
Empowerment Rights
The individual scores for freedom of speech, assembly and association, and the right to participate in government are shown in the graph below. The scores (the dark line in the middle of each bar) are shown within uncertainty bands, to show the range of likely scores. The wider the band, the less certain we are of the score, because of a low number of survey respondents, or the wide range of answers they gave, or both. The narrower the band, the more certain we are of the score. For example, the score of 4.0 for the right to opinion and expression could be between 3.2 and 4.9, which falls in the very bad to bad range.
Freedom from torture
Liberia scored 5.0/10 for the right to freedom from torture.
As shown in this word cloud, human rights experts identified journalists, human rights advocates, and people engaged in or suspected of political violence as being at particular risk of having the right to freedom from torture violated.
Quality of Life rights
Quality of Life rights (economic and social rights) include the rights to food, health, education, housing, and work. HRMI produces two Quality of Life scores for each country, each score measuring against a different benchmark. The global best benchmark scores all countries against the same high standard. By adjusting for a country’s income, HRMI also scores countries against the level they could be expected to be performing at, given their income level.