Bangladesh has moved two notches up to the 144th place among 180 countries in this year's World Press Freedom Index.

Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), in its flagship annual report released yesterday, however, voiced serious concern over the state of freedom of expression in the South Asian country.

"In Bangladesh, it is a bad idea to criticise the constitution or Islam, the state religion. Journalists and bloggers who refuse to submit to censorship or to censor themselves on these subjects risk life imprisonment or the death penalty," observed the RSF, an organisation that promotes the cause of free press.

"Outspoken secularists are also targeted by Islamist militants. The media are nonetheless quite diverse and fairly outspoken on less sensitive issues."

The index reflects the intensity of the attacks on journalistic freedom and independence by governments, ideologies and private-sector interests during last year.

Despite the two-notch elevation, Bangladesh's position is the lowest, except Pakistan's, in the South Asian scene. The index has placed Pakistan in 147th position, Sri Lanka in 141st, India in 133rd, Afghanistan in 120th, Nepal in 105th and Bhutan in 94th.

Analysing the overall global press freedom scenario, the RSF said it is “indicative of a climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by authoritarian and oppressive governments and private-sector interests."

The 2016 edition of the World Press Freedom Index shows that there has been a deep and disturbing decline in respect for media freedom at both the global and regional levels.

The RSF prepares the index calculating points based on violation of media freedom. The higher the figure, the worse is the situation. The global indicator has gone from 3719 points last year to 3857 points this year, a 3.71 percent deterioration. The decline since 2013 is 13.6 percent.

Bangladesh has scored 45.94 points compared to 8.59 points scored by the top-ranked country Finland and 83.92 points allocated to the bottom country, Eritrea, in the list.

Bangladesh ranked 146 in last year's index. 

This year's five highest ranking countries are Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand while the five lowest ranked countries are Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria and China.

The Index shows that Europe (with 19.8 points) still has the freest media, followed distantly by Africa (36.9), which for the first time overtook the Americas (37.1), a region where violence against journalists is on the rise.

Asia (43.8) and Eastern Europe/Central Asia (48.4) follow, while North Africa/Middle East (50.8) is still the region where journalists are most subjected to constraints of every kind.

Among the major world powers, the United States' ranking, which suffered a huge slide (49th position in 2015) since 2009 (20th), is promoted to 41st position this year.

However, in its short note titled -- 'Freedom ends where national security begins' -- the RSF said, "The US media freedom, enshrined in the first amendment to the 1787 constitution, has encountered a major obstacle -- the government's war on whistleblowers who leak information about its surveillance activities, spying and foreign operations, especially those linked to counterterrorism."

"Furthermore, the US journalists are still not protected by a federal 'shield law' guaranteeing their right not to reveal their sources and other confidential work-related information."

Russia also marked some improvement in terms of ranking from 152nd last year to 148th this time. In Russia chapter, the RSF noted, "Leading independent news outlets have either been brought under control or throttled out of existence. The leading human rights NGOs have been declared “foreign agents.”

In the ranking, the United Kingdom slipped four notches down from 34th to 38th. The RSF observed, "Terrorist attacks have led to the adoption of draconian security legislation. The government reacted to the London public transport bombings in 2005 with a terrorism act the following year that restricts freedom of expression.

"The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) adopted in 2000 allows the authorities to obtain the phone records of journalists in cases of threats to national security.

“Worse still, despite a law protecting the confidentiality of sources, the police have since 1984 been able to ask the courts to order media outlets to hand over unpublished journalistic source material “in the interests of justice.”

Saudi Arabia's position slipped one notch down from 164th to 165th. The RSF said, "There are no really free media in Saudi Arabia and all journalists censor themselves.

“The Internet is the only space where freely-reported information and views can circulate, albeit at great risk to the Internet's citizen-journalists. Like professional journalists, they are watched closely and critical comments are liable to lead to arrest and trial."