VOA常速英语2015--亚欧大陆的民主现状退步（在线收听）

Freedom House: Democracy Under Attack in Eurasia

WASHINGTON—

Democracy is under attack in Europe and Eurasia. In a new report, the non-profit, watchdog organization Freedom House says worsening corruption, abuses of power, and the rise of extremist parties are leaving many countries vulnerable to interference from outside actors.  

The group also says the number of countries receiving the report's worst classification has doubled over the past ten years. Also, it says 12 of the 29 countries it assessed in its new report received downgrades in their level of democracy - especially in parts of Europe and Eurasia.  And the group lays much of the blame on Russia.

欧洲和欧亚大陆的民主现状遇到攻击，自由之家称在其新报告中的29个国家中，有12个国家的民主程度在退步，尤其是欧洲和亚欧大陆部分地区，该组织认为这一现状在很大程度上要归咎于俄罗斯。

“The big story for the 2015 edition is not surprisingly Russia’s escalation of and new forms of aggression internationally and domestically,” says Sylvana Habdank-Kolaczkowska, project director of the report titled "Nations in Transit."

西尔瓦纳是这份名为“转型中的国家”的报告的项目负责人，“2015年报告的重点毫无疑问是俄罗斯在国际上和国内侵略行为的升级和新形态。”

The report uses various factors like the electoral process and independent media in making its determinations.  It says Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine threatens both.

这份报告使用选举过程和独立媒体等各种因素来确定其观点，称俄罗斯与乌克兰持续不断的冲突威胁到这两个方面。

“Russia is a driver of the decline in Eurasia, particularly in areas of civil society, and that has really accelerated in the last few years,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.

“俄罗斯是导致亚欧大陆退步的动力，尤其是在民间团体方面，过去几年内这种退步在加速。”

But that measure of civil society – the people’s ability to gather under a common banner – is something that helps bolster Ukraine’s standing in the report, even if only to the level that existed before the regime of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.

民间团体是人们在同一个旗帜下聚会的能力，对民间团体的衡量帮助提高了乌克兰在这份报告中的地位，即使这个水平和被废除总统维克多·亚努科维奇政权之前的水平差不多。

“Civil society was always and remains extremely vibrant in Ukraine. The fact that that was the one rating that didn’t really decline under Yanukovych is something that other authoritarian leaders have noticed, because they realize you can do everything else right but if you don’t crack down, people will still agitate for what they deserve,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.

“民间团体一直是并且仍然是乌克兰非常活跃的力量，事实上这是亚努科维奇执政期间没有下降的一个评分，其他的独裁领导人也注意到这一点，因为他们意识到你可以做其他任何事，但如果不加以镇压，人们仍然会努力争取他们应得的东西。”

Which, she says, points back to Russia’s involvement in not only the decline of other nations’ rankings but in its own as well.

她说俄罗斯的行为不仅导致其他国家评分降低，也导致本国的评分降低。

“It needs a change in the character of the leadership.  It needs a regime that is no longer aggressively against all forms of democratization,” says Habdank-Kolaczkowska.

“俄罗斯需要改变其领导人的性格，需要一个不再对各种民主咄咄逼人的政权。”

The report also slams Moscow as the lead agitator in Ukraine’s current crisis.

In the Balkans, according to Freedom House, four out of seven countries registered declines, including Serbia and Montenegro for threats to media independence.

In Central and Eastern Europe, the only country to register an overall score improvement was the Czech Republic, where the report said conditions calmed after political scandals and instability in 2013.

Freedom House says conditions remain "dire" in Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which had the lowest scores of the report.

Habdank-Kolaczkowska says that to counter the latest negative trends such measures, the European Union and its allies must do more to uphold democratic standards within Europe.