Doha, Qatar: The State of Qatar has climbed five positions in the RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025, marking its third consecutive year of improvement.
According to the RSF report released yesterday, Qatar now ranks 79th globally—its highest-ever position—and leads the Middle East region, including Israel.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remains the most dangerous in the world for journalists, with the Israeli army’s destruction of media infrastructure in Gaza cited as a key factor. Every country in the region is classified as being in a “difficult” or “very serious” press freedom situation—except Qatar.
RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025 indicated that “Of the five main indicators that determine the World Press Freedom Index, the indicator measuring the financial conditions of journalism and economic pressure on the industry dragged down the world’s overall score in 2025.
Although physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom, economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem. The economic indicator on the Press Freedom Index now stands at an unprecedented, critical low as its decline continued in 2025. As a result, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of the Index.
