Government restrictions upon and social hostilities involving religion decreased slightly from 2013 to 2014, according to figures from the Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.
The study, the seventh of its kind by the US-based centre, found that of 198 countries, almost a quarter – 24 per cent – had high or very high levels of government restrictions in place on religious activities in 2014, down slightly from 28 per cent the previous year. A similar decline was seen in the proportion of countries which had high or very high social hostilities toward religion – down from 27 per cent to 23 per cent.
The findings make 2014 the second year in a row in which hostilities have shown a decline following five years of increases in both government and social hostilities.
Yet while only a quarter of countries surveyed fall into the most restrictive categories on both counts, these countries include some of the most populous, such as Indonesia, Russia and Pakistan, meaning that about 75 per cent of the world’s 7.2 billion people were living in such countries during 2014 – a figure slightly down on the 77 per cent who did so in 2013.
While the declines in hostilities toward religion were small, they did come at a time when there was a marked increase in the number of countries which experienced religious-related terror activities, such as those carried out by groups like the so-called Islamic State and Boko Haram.
The figures show the number of countries which experienced religion-related terror activities rose from 37 per cent in 2013 to 41 per cent or 82 nations in 2014. While in some cases this was limited to recruitment or fund-raising alone, religious-related terrorism did lead to deaths in 60 countries.
Elsewhere, the report shows that area of the world with the highest level of government restrictions upon and social hostilities toward religion was in the Middle East and North Africa followed by the Asia-Pacific region. The Americas had the lowest level.
Christians and Muslims faced harassment in the greatest number of countries while harassment of Jews continued to increase in 2014. The data shows that while Christians faced harassment in 108 countries in 2014 – up six on the previous year – and Muslims faced harassment in 100 countries – up one on the previous year, Jews faced harassment in 81 countries, well above the 51 nations in which this occurred in 2007.
Due to a lack of information, North Korea – described as one of the most repressive regime’s in the world toward religion – was not included in the study.
