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Harassment of religious groups still on the rise, Pew reports

17 January 2025

Alamy

A Thai Buddhist monk in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday. The latest Pew report refers to conflict between ethnic Malay Muslims and ethnic Thai Buddhists in the country, where martial law has been imposed and there are claims of excessive force used by government forces

A Thai Buddhist monk in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday. The latest Pew report refers to conflict between ethnic Malay Muslims and ethnic Thai Buddhist...

THE harassment of religious groups, either by government or other groups, is at its most widespread since records began, the latest study by the Pew Research Center says.

Pew, which is based in the United States, has been tracking hostility and harassment of religious groups over the past 15 years. Its latest study, published just before Christmas, found that harassment of religious groups occurred in 192 out of the world’s 198 countries and territories in 2022, the latest year for which it has data. This represents a new high from its 2021 figure of 190 countries.

Christians experienced harassment in 166 of these countries.

The countries where religious groups experience the worst restrictions and violence from both government actors and individual and other groups are Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Pew said. Close behind were Israel, India, and Nigeria.

The report ranks countries by levels of government restrictions on religions, including limitations on preaching and bans on conversion, and the attitudes and actions of other groups towards religions, expressed through religious hate crime, including verbal attacks in the media and physical violence against people or property.

Researchers also looked to see if there was a correlation between government repression of a religion and social hostility towards members of that religion by individuals or other groups.

“For the most part, the answer is yes: government restrictions and social hostilities tend to go hand in hand,” the report concludes, although there are many exceptions, it says.

The UK, which has a moderate ranking on government hostility towards religions, has the same moderate ranking for social hostilities experienced by faith groups.

More than 20 countries fell into the high ranking for both government and social hostility. Most of these countries have experienced sectarian violence, conflict that is religiously motivated or backed, and militant activities. India and Pakistan have had high rankings for both criteria every year since the study began.

Examples referred to by Pew of violence in this list include Thailand, where there is conflict between ethnic Malay Muslims and ethnic Thai Buddhists, martial law has been imposed, and there are claims of excessive force used by government forces.

Countries that record high levels of government restrictions, but lower levels of societal hostility, tend to be run by authoritarian governments that have a hostile relationship with religion, including tight controls on its expression, Pew says. China, Cuba, Vietnam, and some other post-Soviet states fall into this category.

China has ranked high for government repression of religion every year that the study has been published.

In three-quarters of countries, religious groups experienced at least one form of physical harassment, from property damage to detention, assault, or killings.

Christians and Muslims, as the largest faith groups globally, experienced the most harassment in a greater number of countries in 2022, although the index does not measure the severity of the harassment, or how many separate incidents there were, and “therefore cannot determine which religious group faces the most persecution”, the report says.

Christians were harassed in 166 countries, compared with 160 the previous year, and Muslims in 148 countries, up from 141. Jews were the faith group that experienced the third highest level of harassment of any religion, despite being one of the smallest global faith groups. They were harassed in 90 countries in 2022, down slightly from 91 the previous year.

Jews also experienced more violence and hostility from private individuals or groups than was directed or led by governments, in contrast to other faith groups.

“Most religious groups — with the exception of Jews — faced harassment from governments in more countries in 2022 than from private individuals or groups in 2022. That year, Jews were harassed by governments in 68 countries and by social actors in 77 countries.”

The number of countries where harassment of Hindus occurred also rose to a record high of 26. Members of folk religions experienced harassment in 49 countries, another record high. The number of nations where harassment was directed at Buddhists fell to 25 in 2022, after reaching a record high of 28 in 2021.

Harassment directed at adherents of “other religions” was measured in 68 countries in 2022, tying with 2019’s previous record high. The religiously unaffiliated were targeted in acts of harassment in 32 countries, another record high.

The study also found a trend towards correlation with regard to countries with low levels of hostilities towards religion and a smaller population size, less than 60 million. In 34 of the 123 countries with a low or moderate ranking, the population is less than one million. Nine countries, including the small island states of Palau and Nauru, had a ranking of zero, meaning that no social hostilities were recorded. Botswana, Namibia, and Lesotho also recorded zero, despite having larger populations.

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