Pew Forum Releases Landmark Survey of International Religious Freedom
Today the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released what it claims to be the first quantitative worldwide study on how governments and societies infringe on the religious beliefs and practices of individuals.
The Global Restrictions On Religion report finds that only about one-third of the world's countries impose high restrictions on religion, but these 64 nations contain 70 percent of the world's 6.8 billion people (thanks to India and China). While almost half of the world's countries impose low restrictions on religion, this good sign is mitigated by the fact that they only account for 15 percent of world population.
"This is very surprising," said Timothy Shah, senior research scholar at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. "I was taken aback and disturbed by the number of people in the world with severe restrictions on their religious practice. It was higher than I had expected."
Combining social hostilities and government restrictions made for a higher number of the world's population in restricted countries, said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Forum.
"The real test of the level of restrictions is not how they feel to the members of a majority faith but how they feel to religious minorities," said Alan Cooperman, associate director of research at Pew. "When we say 70 percent of the people live in countries with high restrictions on religion, many of them don't feel all of those restrictions." So in Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim man probably won't feel as restricted as someone of a different faith.
"We're capturing tensions within faiths as well," Cooperman said. "There are also minorities within the majorities." For example, in Greece a non-Orthodox Christian may feel at a disadvantage.
It's no surprise that the Middle East and North Africa rank the highest for regional restrictions on religion, whereas the Americas are the least restrictive region. But unlike many other religious freedom reports, Pew's distinguishes between restrictions that come from government laws and actions and those that come from hostile acts by individuals and social groups.
"These phenomena tend to go together," Shah said. "If the government is restrictive, it leads to social hostilities." The two operate in a cycle, he said. Sometimes government restrictions are inspired by hostilities between religious groups, religious extremism, or terrorism. But instead of reducing hostilities, these actions often exacerbate them, he said.
In studying 198 countries, Pew found the highest level of restrictions in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran, where both government and society limit religious expression. But other countries are more disparate. Vietnam and China have high government restrictions on religion but low or moderate social hostilities. Nigeria and Bangladesh are high in social hostilities but government restrictions are moderate.
"Countries with high government restrictions and low social ones tend to be countries where populations are very religiously homogeneous or very secular," Shah said. "Or they are populations which are very small and poor so that the people are relatively quiescent and not provoked by government restrictions into a violent response."
Cuba, for instance, has severe restrictions on religion but low levels of social hostility, in part because Cuba is ethnically and religiously homogeneous, he said.
China is the best example of high government restriction and low social hostility, said Thomas Farr, Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown University. "It's because religious people have to keep their heads down. They can't afford to be openly hostile even if they were inclined to be, because of the government's restriction on their very existence."
Star Trek Into Darkness
(on articles open to the public, you must at least register for a free account).
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Newsletters
Google
Comments
Charitas
What, no mention of Canada where pastors are arrested for preaching, and specific books are banned by the government? The USA score is unreasonably low, secular activism (especially against Christians) inside and outside of government is widespread. School children have become the merchandise of this battleground. Let's not forget that many public colleges and universities where Christians have literally been told by professors they don't belong.
JM
I've looked at the PEW website and the full report, but its not clear why India received such a low ranking. Anyone who has visited India can attest to the wide variety of religions practiced quite openly. There is quite a lot of social tension in India but that seems to be less about religion and more about socioeconomic conditions among competing cultural groups.
Hatji
To quote: "Faith-based terrorism killed people in nearly 1 in 10 countries worldwide." At 9/11/01 my wife and I were staying in a hotel in Malaysia. We saw the events on CNN. Since this is a very Muslim country and we are American Christians, we were concerned about what attitudes would greet us when we walked out of our room the next morning. The first person we met, a desk clerk, was a Muslim man. "Sir" he asked, "what country are you from?" "USA, I answered." Almost with tears in his eyes he pleaded with us to not think that those destructive acts were a true depiction of Islam. That was the general attitude we experienced here in Malaysia. My point: Can we not find a better term than "Faith-based terrorism?" How about "fanatical religious terrorism?" My Muslim friends here would find that more accurate, and it would perhaps bring down one more barrier to their eventual faith in Christ.