Because of the unrest following Ukraine’s presidential runoff election, Freedom House is upgrading that country’s ranking for civil liberties in the pro-democracy organization’s annual “Freedom in the World” survey.

Since 1972, Freedom House has assessed the level of political and civic freedom in independent nations and disputed territories based on criteria drawn principally from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Nations are assigned rankings under the categories “political rights” and “civil liberties,” on a scale of one to seven, with one indicating the greatest level of freedom.

The 2005 “Freedom in the World” report, to be released at the end of December, was to mark the fifth straight year of 4,4 rankings for Ukraine. But on Tuesday – the cutoff date for the report’s evaluations, based on a December 1 to November 30 year – Freedom House scholars reassessed the election’s impact on the state of Ukrainian freedom.

Uncertainty surrounding the election’s outcome remained, as tumult from the Orange Revolution continued, and as opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko broke off negotiations with Prime Minister Yanukovych.

A senior scholar at Freedom House, Adrian Karatnycky; the managing editor of “Freedom in the World,” Aili Piano; the director of research, Arch Puddington; and a research assistant, Mark Rosenberg, did not reconsider any of Ukraine’s evaluations for political freedom, which were first decided in early November. On the civil-liberties side, however, the analysts increased the freedom rankings in four subcategories.

On the question, “Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression?” Ukraine earned an extra point in light of the shift from largely government-controlled press and broadcast outlets to greater independence among TV and print journalists, the scholars said.

Ukraine also earned an extra point for “academic freedom” and an “educational system free of extensive political indoctrination.” According to Mr. Karatnycky, students had been threatened during the campaign season, told they would be expelled if they did not vote for Mr. Yanukovych. But the scholars noted that students are a driving force behind the protests, and Mr. Karatnycky said Ukraine’s education minister, Vasyl Kremen, had pledged that students and professors would face no consequences for exercising their civil rights. “Given that he is a former Communist-party official,” Mr. Karatnycky said, “this is remarkable.”

The protests themselves demonstrated that there is “freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion,” and Ukraine’s ranking increased in that category, as did its grade on “freedom of political or quasi-political organization.”

The improvements in the subcategories elevated Ukraine’s overall civil liberties score to 3, which, Mr. Puddington said, stands in marked contrast to the “generally poor performance of neighboring Russia.”