By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW - Russia has restricted rights to such an extent that it has joined the countries that are not free for the first time since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Freedom House said Monday, marking Moscow's march away from the Western democracies it has embraced as diplomatic partners.
"This setback for freedom represented the year's most important political trend," the U.S.-based non-governmental organization wrote in its annual study, Freedom in the World 2005.
Freedom House noted increased Kremlin control over national television and other media, limitations on local government, and parliamentary and presidential elections it said were neither free nor fair.
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