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Pew Research Center - http://www.pewforum.org/2015/02/26/religious-hostilities/
Multiple research and report dimensions important to women and girls.
Religious
Restrictions & Hostilities – Research
Overall
Decline in Social Hostilities in 2013, Looking at the overall level of
restrictions – whether resulting from government policies or from hostile
acts by private individuals, organizations and social groups – the study
finds that restrictions on religion were high or very high in 39% of countries.
Direct
Link to Full 85-Page 2015 Report: - http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/02/Restrictions2015_fullReport.pdf - Computer can
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Worldwide,
social hostilities involving religion declined somewhat in 2013 after reaching
a six-year peak the previous year, but roughly a quarter of the world’s
countries are still grappling with high levels of religious hostilities within
their borders, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on
global restrictions on religion.
The new
study finds that the share of countries with high or very high levels of social
hostilities involving religion dropped from 33% in 2012 to 27% in 2013, the
most recent year for which data are available. These types of hostilities run
the gamut from vandalism of religious property and desecration of sacred texts
to violent assaults resulting in deaths and injuries.
By
contrast, the share of countries with high or very high government
restrictions on religion stayed roughly the same from 2012 to 2013. The
share of countries in this category was 27% in 2013, compared with 29% in 2012.
Government restrictions on religion include efforts to control religious groups
and individuals in a variety of ways, ranging from registration requirements to
discriminatory policies and outright bans on certain faiths.
Looking at
the overall level of restrictions – whether resulting from government
policies or from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations and social
groups – the study finds that restrictions on religion were high or very high
in 39% of countries. Because some of these countries (like China and India) are
very populous, about 5.5 billion people (77% of the world’s population) were
living in countries with a high or very high overall level of restrictions on
religion in 2013, up from 76% in 2012 and 68% as of 2007.
Among the
world’s 25 most populous countries, the highest overall levels of restrictions
were found in Burma (Myanmar), Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Russia, where
both the government and society at large impose numerous limits on religious
beliefs and practices. Among these populous countries, China had the highest
level of government restrictions in 2013, and India had the highest level of
social hostilities involving religion. (Click here to
see an interactive feature showing the levels of restrictions and hostilities
among the 25 most populous countries from 2007 to 2013.)
As in
previous years, Christians and Muslims – who together make up more than half of
the global population – faced harassment in the largest number of countries.
Christians were harassed, either by government or social groups, in 102 of the
198 countries included in the study (52%), while Muslims were harassed in 99
countries (50%).
In recent
years, there has been a marked increase in the number of countries where Jews
were harassed. In 2013, harassment of Jews, either by government or social
groups, was found in 77 countries (39%) – a seven-year high. Jews are much more
likely to be harassed by individuals or groups in society than by governments.
In Europe, for example, Jews were harassed by individuals or social groups in
34 of the region’s 45 countries (76%). (See sidebar
on social hostilities and religious minorities in Europe.)
This is
the sixth in a series of annual reports by the Pew Research Center analyzing
the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on
religious beliefs and practices. The studies are part of the Pew-Templeton
Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its
impact on societies around the world. The project is jointly funded by The Pew
Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.
To measure
global restrictions on religion in 2013, the new study scores 198 countries and
territories on the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.
• The
Government Restrictions Index measures government laws, policies and actions
that restrict religious beliefs and practices. The GRI is comprised of 20
measures of restrictions, including efforts by government to ban particular faiths,
prohibit conversion, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or
more religious groups.
• The
Social Hostilities Index measures acts of religious hostility by private
individuals, organizations or groups in society. This includes religion-related
armed conflict or terrorism, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire
for religious reasons or other religion-related intimidation or abuse. The SHI
includes 13 measures of social hostilities.1
This
year’s report also looks at the prevalence of restrictions and hostilities that
tend to target religious minorities around the world. The report finds that
these types of restrictions and hostilities do not generally exist in isolation
but often accompany broader restrictions on religion in society.
The Pew
Research Center identified three measures on the Government Restrictions Index
and three on the Social Hostilities Index that target groups out of favor with
the government or society, which tend to be religious minorities. (The analysis
focused on whether or not these restrictions and hostilities were in place, not
on how many members of religious minorities were affected by them. For more
details on the selection of the measures, click here.)
On the
government side, these restrictions include prohibitions or bans on specific
faiths; attempts to control or intimidate religious groups through the use of
force; and efforts to eliminate a group’s presence from the country or a
particular area. As of 2013, nearly a third of the countries in the world (59
countries, or 30%) had at least one of these restrictions.
The study
also identified three measures on the Social Hostilities Index that tend to
target religious minorities. In 2013, 120 countries (about 61%) experienced at
least one of these hostilities, which include attempts to impose a particular
perspective on religion on the rest of society; attempts by some religious
groups to prevent other religious groups from operating; and assaults or other
acts of hostility directed at individuals or groups seen as threatening to the
majority faith.
In theory, a country might
restrict a particular minority group but generally respect the religious rights
of others living in the country. In reality, the new Pew Research study finds,
countries with restrictions or hostilities aimed primarily at a religious
minority are more likely than the rest of the world to have widespread
restrictions and hostilities beyond those that tend to target religious
minorities.
Among the
59 countries with at least one of the government restrictions aimed primarily
at religious minorities, 43 (73%) had high or very high scores on the GRI in
2013.2 In the
rest of the world, 8% of countries had high or very high scores on the GRI. The
study also found that all of the most restrictive countries – those with very
high scores on the GRI – had at least one type of restriction that was aimed
primarily at religious minorities.
The same
pattern was seen in the case of social hostilities. Among the 120 countries
that had at least one of the social hostilities aimed primarily at religious
minorities, 53 (44%) had high or very high scores on the SHI in 2013. In places
where these types of hostilities were not picked up by the sources used for
this study (see Methodology),
no countries had high scores on the SHI. The countries with the most extensive
social hostilities involving religion – those with very high scores on the SHI
– all experienced at least one type of hostility that was aimed at religious
minorities.
This
suggests that it is relatively rare for countries to have restrictions or
hostilities that only affect religious minorities. In general, restrictions on
minorities go hand in hand with broader restrictions on religion.
These are
among the key findings of the Pew Research Center’s latest report on global
restrictions on religion, which ranks 198 countries and territories by their
levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving
religion. The initial report, published in 2009, established a baseline for
each country and five major geographic regions. Four follow-up reports looked
at changes in the level of restrictions and hostilities in these countries and
regions. The new report focuses on countries that had very high restrictions
and hostilities in 2013, as well as countries that had large changes in their
scores on Government Restrictions Index or Social Hostilities Index from 2012
to 2013. Where appropriate, it also compares the situation in 2013 with the situation
in the baseline year of the study.
Readers
should note that the categories of very high, high, moderate and low
restrictions or hostilities are relative – not absolute – rankings based on the
overall distribution of index scores in the initial year of this study. (See
Methodology for more details.) As such, they provide a guide for comparing
country scores and evaluating their direction over time. However, the Pew
Research Center has not attached numerical rankings to the countries because
there are many tie scores and the differences between the scores of countries
that are close to each other are not necessarily as meaningful as they might
appear.
As was the
case in the previous restrictions reports, North Korea is not included in this
study. The primary sources used in the study indicate that North Korea’s
government is among the most repressive in the world, including toward
religion. But because independent observers lack regular access to the country,
the sources are unable to provide the kind of specific, timely information that
formed the basis of this analysis.
1.
Examples of each type of government restriction or social
hostility are generally counted in a single measure on the GRI or the SHI. For
instance, a restriction on proselytizing (sharing one’s faith with the intent
of persuading another to join the faith) is not also counted as a restriction
on conversion (an individual changing his/her religion). In some situations,
however, an individual restriction or hostility may be part of a broader set of
restrictions or hostilities. For more details, see the Methodology.
↩
2.
In this report, the term “religious minorities” refers to any
group that represents less than 50% of a country’s population. Click here for
more details. ↩