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Reporters Without Borders recently had issued its eighth annual world Press Freedom Index which reflects press freedom violations that took place between 1st SEPT 2008 and 31st AUG 2009. Reporters Without Borders compiles the index every year on the basis of questionnaires that are completed by hundreds of journalists and media experts around the world.

Europe long set an example in press freedom but several European nations have fallen significantly in this year’s index. Even if the first 13 places are still held by European countries, others such as France (43rd), Slovakia (44th) and Italy (49th) continue their descent, falling 8, 37 and 5 places respectively.

Meanwhile, international rankings for Malaysian press freedom has imperceptible improvement of one place from 132th in 2008 to 131th this year, but with the rating dropped from 39.50 to 44.25. This by mean Malaysia is at the lowest rating in the history of this annual index, where Malaysia was rated 41 in 2007, 22.25 in 2006, 33 in 2005 and 39.83 in 2004.

You can check out for more details and the full ranking list of Press Freedom Index 2009 at HERE.