A Washington-based human rights group has again classified North Korea as “not free” in its most recent assessment of countries around the world.

Freedom House gave North Korea a score of three points out of 100 in its latest report, “Freedom in the World 2022,” released on Friday.

In its annual Freedom in the World report, Freedom House rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in 210 countries and territories. It gave the North zero points for political rights and three points for civil liberties.

A researcher at the human rights group, Manisha Vepa, told Radio Free Asia that the North restricted movement of its people and failed to transparently disclose information on COVID-19 for the past two years, citing quarantine reasons. Vepa assessed that the North’s freedom situation worsened due to the pandemic.

The only other countries that scored lower than the North in the freedom report were Turkmenistan, South Sudan and Syria.

The human rights group has published the Freedom in the World report since 1973 and the North has remained near the bottom every year.