religious freedom, political rights and civil liberties

From the November issue of Touchstone, editor David Mills summarizes the Hudson Institute's report, Religious Freedom in the World, 2007...

Scholars in their Center for Religious Freedom rate countries on a 1-7 scale. In addition, they report Freedom House's ratings for political rights and civil liberties. Finally, they combine the three scores to give a general freedom ranking.

The lowest/best score, then, is a 3-- and was attained by Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, United States. A score of 4 was given to Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Italy, and Latvia.

The highest/worst score is a 21. Burma, Tibet, North Korea, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan claimed that honor. Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia earned a 20, while Belarus, China, and Libya received a 19.

Mills also cites a research paper by Brian Grim of Penn State who finds, not surprisingly (and as is consistent with the literature in this area), a very high correlation between the various categories of freedom.