Freedom House

History

Freedom House was founded in 1941 and was the first American organization to champion the advancement of freedom globally. 

Geographic scope / network

It currently has 14 offices and conducts programs in over 30 countries in all regions of the world.

Key actions and/or campaigns

Freedom House has a number of programs that support human rights and democracy advocates in their efforts to promote open government, defend human rights, strengthen civil society and facilitate the free flow of information and ideas. It primarily assists through grant-giving, emergency support, capacity-building programming, trainings, international exchange programs, and networking activities. 

Through its Emergency Assistance Program, Freedom House provides emergency financial assistance to at-risk journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists and organisations, including LGBTQI+ defenders and organizations, non-traditional advocates, survivors of religious persecution and religious freedom advocates . It also provides urgent advocacy and resiliency grants, as well as preventive security training. 

Freedom House is also member of several networks of organizations that provide protection grants or assistance to journalists and human rights defenders, including the Journalist in Distress Network (JID), the Legal Network for Journalists at Risk, A Culture of Safety Alliance (ACOS), the International CSO Safety of Journalists Coalition, the Zero Tolerance Initiative (ZTI), the Defenders in Development Campaign, the Alliance for Land, Indigenous and Environmental Defenders (ALLIED), the HRDs and Closing Civic Space Community of Practice of the Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN), and the Building Responses Together Network, among other regional networks. 

In regard to media freedom, Freedom House assesses the challenges for media and online freedom, promotes the emergence of alternative media in countries where traditional media is restricted, and assists embattled journalists, media workers and citizen journalists, including those who investigate corruption and abuses of power. 

The ‘Free Them All: A Political Prisoners Initiative’ is a Freedom House project intended to help free political prisoners and push back against the jailing of activists. 

Key outputs

Freedom in the World 

Freedom on the Net 

The China Media Bulletin 
Media and Democracy 

Monitoring of threats to journalism safety

Yes

Types of threats monitored

Digital media freedom and threats to freedom of expression. 

Methodology of monitoring

The Freedom on the Net index measures each country’s level of internet freedom based on a set of methodological questions. The methodology is developed in consultation with international experts to capture the vast array of relevant issues to human rights online (see “Checklist of Questions”). More information on Freedom on the Net can be found here: https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-net/freedom-net-research-methodology 
Freedom in the World assesses the real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals, rather than governments or government performance per se. Political rights and civil liberties can be affected by both state and nonstate actors, including insurgents and other armed groups. More information on Freedom in the World can be found here: https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-net/freedom-net-research-methodology.  
The China Media Bulletin is a monthly email newsletter that provides unique insight on censorship, media freedom, and internet freedom issues related to the People's Republic of China, drawing on both English and Chinese-language sources. https://freedomhouse.org/report/china-media-bulletin  
Media and Democracy is a pilot project that aims to examine the current forms of pressure on independent news media organizations across six countries in EU (Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland), and identify emerging responses and “bright spots” that are protecting their crucial democratic roles. For this research, we focused on a qualitative approach rather than measurable indicators and scores: we conducted 39 in-depth interviews with media professionals and experts across the six countries of study. 

Interested in collaborating

We are very interested as we work in collaboration with the Scholars at Risk (SAR) network as well as often collaborate with the University of York's HRD Protection Fellowships and yearly provide nominees to this process.