Contemporary Global Overview
The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life performed a study on religious freedom in the world, for which data were gathered from 16 governmental and non-governmental organisations – including the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and Human Rights Watch – and representing over 99.5 percent of the world's population. According to the results, that were published in December 2009, about one-third of the countries in the world have high or very high restrictions on religion, and nearly 70 percent of the world's population lives in countries with heavy restrictions on freedom of religion. This concerns restrictions on religion originating from both national authorities and social hostilities undertaken by private individuals, organisations and social groups. Government restrictions included constitutional limitations or other prohibitions on free speech.
Social hostilities were measured by religion-related terrorism and violence between religious groups.
The countries in North and South America reportedly had some of the lowest levels of government and social restrictions on religion, while The Middle East and North Africa were the regions with the highest.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran were the countries that top the list of countries with the overall highest levels of restriction on religion.
Of the world's 25 most populous countries, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan had the most restrictions, while Brazil, Japan, Italy, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States Had some of the lowest levels.
While the Middle East, North Africa and the Americas exhibit either extremely high or low levels of government and social restrictions, these two variables do not always move together: Vietnam and China, for instance, had high government restrictions on religion but were in the moderate or low range when it came to social hostilities. Nigeria and Bangladesh follow the opposite pattern: high in social hostilities but moderate in terms of government actions.
The study found that government restrictions were relatively low in the U.S., but the levels of religious hostilities were higher than those reported in a number of other large democracies, such as Brazil and Japan.
While most countries provided for the protection of religious freedom in their constitutions or laws, only a quarter of those countries were found to fully respect these legal rights in practice.
In 75 countries — four in 10 in the world — governments limit the efforts of religious groups to proselytise and in 178 countries — 90 percent — religious groups must register with the government.
India and China, also exhibited extreme, but different restrictions on religion. China showed very high levels of government restriction but low to moderate levels of social hostilities, while India showed very high social hostilities but only low levels of government restrictions.
Israel stood out among the nations surveyed with "high scores on the social hostilities index" in comparison with other countries that are more authoritarian or less ordered.
Topping the government restrictions index were Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Egypt, Burma, Maldives, Eritrea, Malaysia and Brunei.
At the top of the social hostilities index were Iraq, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
Read more about this topic: Freedom Of Religion
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