The United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
Article 19 of the UDHR states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 19 is a British international human rights organisation that works to defend and promote freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide. It was founded in 1987. Wikipedia
The organisation classes countries by how free their populations are to freely express themselves without interference.
In the organisations 2024 report on freedom of expression less than 25% of the worlds population live in countries with free or marginally restricted freedoms. Over 50% of the worlds population live in countries with virtually no freedom of expression.
There is no democracy without freedom of expression. Ergo democracy is replaced by some kind of dictatorship - communist / one party, military, theocratic, absolute monarchy, personalist (Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Un, etc.) For dictatorships to endure, censorship, and imprisonment or assassination of critics is the norm.
True democracies never go to war with each other. Wars always have a dictatorship on one, or both sides.
