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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35419-2002Dec24.html
Lands of the Free
(Washington Post) Editorial - The Freedom House survey, which began informally in 1955 and has been published as an annual report, "Freedom in the World," is a comprehensive study of political evolution, according to civil liberties, independent civil institutions and independent media, as well as electoral politics. This year's Freedom House survey notes the number of Muslim countries that are quietly making progress toward greater political freedom and personal liberty: Afghanistan, Albania, Tajikistan, Qatar, and Turkey, as well as Senegal and Bahrain. While, as a rule, few countries with Islamic majorities are democracies, there is no "inexorable link" between Islam and tyranny. Yet of the world's least-free countries, a striking number are directly associated with the export of international terrorism: Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya.