A global survey of political and civil liberty indicates that personal freedom diminished in the 1970s for eighty-five million people in seven countries.

The assessment was made by Freedom House, a New York-based nonprofit organization that rates nations as free, partly free, or not free.

Sixty-six countries with 42 percent of the world’s population were termed “not free.” The survey listed 1 percent fewer people in the free category than a year earlier.