Most of the rich countries around the world have high amounts of civil rights and
political freedoms. Many of the poor countries do not. However, there are some
exceptions to both rules. Go here to see examples of poor
but free nations. Below are the richest countries (note that only about half are
even above the average for the world, which is around $6,300) that are considered
to be "not free" based
on civil rights and political freedoms (according to Freedom House, which
monitors personal and press freedom around the world). Also note that the top 6
are primarily there because of oil money (and oil money definitely is not
correlated with freedom!).
Ratings of "free", "partly free" and "not free" are given to each country (and
some possessions and territories) by Freedom House. The ten countries with the
highest "gross national income" (GNI) per person where Freedom House has given a "not free"
rating are listed below. (Note that using "gross domestic product" (GDP) per
capita would yield a slight different result since GDP is a figure of the total
amount of goods produced in a country--even if the profits go elsewhere--while
GNI is based on incomes actually earned by that country's residents--even if some
of that income comes from profits or earnings from other countries.)
COUNTRY
1. Qatar
2. United Arab Emirates
3. Brunei
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Oman
6. Libya
7. Lebanon
8. Cuba
9. Russia
10. Maldives
