Bangladesh slips 3 places in the World Press Freedom Index

POBNEWS24, Dhaka Apr 30, 2026 : Bangladesh has slipped 3 places in the World Press Freedom Index. This has somewhat damaged the success achieved in this index in 2025.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international non-profit organization working on the rights of journalists worldwide, released its 2026 index on Thursday.
Bangladesh’s current position in the index this year is 152nd out of 180 countries, down 3 places. Last year, Bangladesh was ranked 149th.
Based on the score, countries are divided into categories from ‘good’ to ‘very serious’. Bangladesh has now been included in the ‘very serious’ category.
Bangladesh had moved up 16 places in last year’s index.
Reason for the fall: The RSF index analyzes five indicators to determine a country’s media freedom: political context, legal framework, economic pressure, social dynamics and security.
The main reason for Bangladesh’s decline is the drastic decrease in the score in the ‘political context’ index. This index is mainly determined by measuring political support for media autonomy, pressure from the state or political forces, and the ability to tolerate dissenting journalism.
In addition, the extent to which the media receives support in holding politicians accountable in the public interest is also examined here.
However, in this year’s index, Bangladesh is 1 step ahead of Pakistan and 5 steps ahead of India. Although Bangladesh lags behind many neighboring countries. Nepal is 65 steps ahead of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka is 18 steps ahead, and Bhutan is 2 steps ahead.
Regarding the Pacific region, RSF said that repression is high in this region and the situation is constantly deteriorating here. Although all countries talk about press freedom on paper, in reality it is being violated.
This is the first time in the 25 years of publishing the RSF index that the global average score has fallen to its lowest level. For the first time in the history of the index, more than half of the countries have fallen into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ category.
In 2002, countries with ‘good’ press freedom accounted for 20 percent of the world’s population. In 2026, the total population of countries in this category was less than 1 percent.
Only seven countries were included in the ‘good’ category this year, including countries in Northern Europe, including Norway.
The United States’ position fell from ‘fairly good’ to ‘problematic’ in 2024, the year Donald Trump was re-elected. This year, the country fell another seven places to 64th place.
On the other hand, Russia is ranked 172nd. RSF has warned that the Putin government is using anti-terrorism and anti-extremism laws to erode press freedom. As of April this year, 48 journalists were imprisoned in Russia.
Norway has held the top spot in the index for 10 consecutive years, while Eritrea has been at the bottom of the list for three consecutive years.
Meanwhile, Syria has made remarkable progress since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government at the end of 2024. The country has jumped 36 places to 141st place.
“Currently, international laws protecting journalists are being ignored and perpetrators are enjoying impunity,” said Anne Bokande, editorial director of RSF.