Government restrictions on religion are at their highest since tracking began in 2007, the Pew Research Center has said in its new report, finding that 56 countries reached “high” or “very high” levels of restrictions on religion in 2018.
“In 2018, the global median level of government restrictions on religion – that is, laws, policies and actions by officials that impinge on religious beliefs and practices – continued to climb, reaching an all-time high since Pew Research Center began tracking these trends in 2007,” Pew said November 10. While the rise from 2017 was “relatively modest,” it continues the “substantial rise” in restrictions.
To track trends in religion, the Pew Research Center has created a Government Restrictions Index, a 10-point scale using 20 indicators. It has also created an index of social hostilities. While the coronavirus epidemic has prompted a wave of debate about restrictions on religious gatherings, Pew’s latest report concerns the year 2018.
According to Pew’s analysis, the Middle East and North Africa region still had the highest median level of government restrictions on religion, 6.2, up from 6.0 in 2017.
However, Asia and the Pacific had the largest increase in government restrictions. For example, 31 countries in the Asia-Pacific region witnessed government use of force related to religion, an increase from 26 countries in 2017.
China ranked the worst on Pew’s index of government restrictions on religion, 9.3 out of 10. Its restrictions include banning religious groups like Falun Gong and several Christian groups. It bars some religious practices, raids places of worship and detains and tortures people. It has continued a detention campaign against Uighurs in its Xinjiang province, with at least 800,000 people detained.
The Pew Research Center also measures social hostilities, which “encompass everything from religion-related armed conflict to harassment over clothing.” This figure peaked in its 2017 report, and declined slightly in 2018.
India ranked the worst on the index of social hostility, 9.6 out of 10, due to significant religion-related mob violence and hostilities about religious conversions in 2018. India’s government restrictions rating also peaked at 5.9 in 2018. Police in Uttar Pradesh state charged 271 Christians with “spreading lies about Hinduism” and allegedly trying to make converts by drugging people.
Christians and Muslims, who make up the world’s most populous and most geographically dispersed religious groups, experienced harassment in the highest number of countries: 145 countries for Christians, and 139 for Muslims.
Jews make up only 0.2% of the world’s population, but faced harassment in 88 countries and were the third-most harassed religious group after Christians and Muslims.
The religiously unaffiliated, including atheists, agnostics and those who don’t identify with any religion, saw declines in harassment. Those in this group were harassed in 18 countries, a decline from 23 countries the previous year.
