Nearly everyone in the Middle East and North Africa lives in a country in one of the bottom 2 expression categories (73% in Crisis countries and 21% in Highly Restricted countries).

Not a single country in the region is Open. 

The visibility of ongoing deterioration of freedom of expression is affected by the already-low scores in much of the region; even while crackdowns occur and repression escalates, the scores have nowhere left to fall, and thus do not register as significant declines.

In the last year, 10 million people experienced a deterioration of their freedom of expression, with a 6-point drop in Israel’s score.

Syria, and its population of 23 million people, saw a slight advance (+1 point).

In the last 5 years, 150 million people across 4 countries experienced declines in their freedom of expression; 59 million people across 3 countries saw improvement.

The largest decline in the region since 2018 took place in Tunisia (-20 points). Yemen has seen a 5-point increase over the same period.

In the last decade, 206 million people across 8 countries experienced declines in their freedom of expression; 23 million people in Syria saw a very slight increase (+1 point) in their Expression Score.

As in prior timeframes, the largest decline over the last 10 years took place in Tunisia (-22 points).