Our study of dozens of these cases leads to a disturbing conclusion: Media restrictions abroad are a bellwether for declines in democracy and for periods of increased human rights abuse. Specifically, competition decreased 14 percent of the time when media restrictions increased, compared with 2 percent of the time when media restrictions did not change and less than 1 percent of the time when restrictions decreased. But these declines are nonetheless more likely when media restrictions increase than otherwise. These data are available beginning in 1981, and since then there were 79 cases where media restrictions increased. In 34 of these 79 cases, increased restrictions coincided with increases in torture, police killings and other forms of state violence — a much higher rate than occurred when media restrictions were not enacted.

Source: Washington Post April 17, 2017 10:52 UTC