RELIGIOUS freedom is under mounting threat around the world amid an apparent global rise in authoritarianism, new research suggests.
The Roman Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need’s (ACN’s) Religious Freedom in the World 2025 says that more than 5.4 billion people — two-thirds of the world’s population — suffer persecution and discrimination on account of their faith.
The report, the charity’s 25th (it is produced every two years), measures violations against religion in all 196 countries around the world. Its report for this year found that governments in 52 countries were using “systematic strategies to control or silence religious life”.
Pope Leo said that the report, launched in the Vatican last month, “bears witness, gives voice to the voiceless, and reveals the hidden suffering of many”.
Mass surveillance, digital censorship, and arbitrary detention suppress religious communities in China, Iran, Eritrea, and Nicaragua, it says. In North Korea, all belief is criminalised. These are among the 24 countries ranked by the report as persecuting religious communities.
In 38 countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Turkey, and Vietnam, religious groups face systematic restrictions and legal inequality. A further 24 countries are under observation after a surge in signs of rising intolerance, religious extremism, and state interference in religious life.
“Authoritarianism is the greatest threat to religious freedom. Authoritarian regimes have systematically enforced legal and bureaucratic mechanisms to suppress religious life,” the report says.
It also warns that jihadist violence is escalating and expanding through networks and exploiting local grievances, having “entered a distinct new phase of trans-national evolution”: the Middle East and Africa are crucial arenas for such activity. Religious nationalism is also on the rise and is eroding minority rights, the report says; religious persecution is fuelling mass migration; and religious freedom has become a global casualty of war and conflict.
The research finds that anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes, across Europe and the Americas, surged after the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza; anti-Christian incidents are also on the rise around the world. The only OSCE country to feature in the list is Belarus, marked as “Of concern”. It has introduced a new law ordering all religious groups to apply for state registration, and has outlawed any gatherings, except for services, in church.
Women and girls from minority religious groups are “twice vulnerable”. Abductions, forced conversions, and coercion into marriage are widespread in Pakistan and Egypt, the report finds.
The president of ACN International, Regina Lynch, said: “Exposing the truth about violations is the first step toward change. It is not enough to lament injustice; we must bring it to light. This report is therefore both a testimony and a call to action. It reminds us that the struggle for religious freedom is not an abstract principle, but a lived reality for millions.
“The right to live according to one’s conscience is the heartbeat of human dignity. Where it is respected, peace and justice flourish. But where it is denied, the human spirit and society lose their very foundations.”
ACN has launched a petition calling on governments and international organisations to promote Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.