Washington (CNN) -- The unsolved murder of human rights activists in Russia. Their detention, torture and murder in Iran. Their jailing in China and Vietnam. Attacks on journalists in the Philippines, Pakistan, Mexico and Somalia. Coups in Africa and Central America. All isolated incidents around the world that together made 2009 a grim milestone in world freedom, according to a United States think tank that tracks liberty around the globe. Declines in freedom around the world outweighed gains last year, for the fourth year in a row, Freedom House says in its annual survey published Tuesday. "This represents the longest continuous period of deterioration in the nearly 40-year history" of the report, writes this year's author, Arch Puddington.
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Freedom declines outweighed gains in '09, Freedom House says in annual survey
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Number of electoral democracies low, group says, but it calls voting rights relatively good
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Progress seen in Iraq, the Balkans, Malawi and Togo
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46% of 194 countries, territories in survey rated free, 30% partly free, 24% not free
@placeholder groups countries into three categories: free, partly free and not free.