Simon Cox Blog: Global Religious Freedom Takes Its Biggest Hit in Over a Decade

Thursday 21 June 2018

Global Religious Freedom Takes Its Biggest Hit in Over a Decade

Christianity is the biggest religion in the world. It's also still the most restricted.

Christians around the world face mounting political and social pressure over their beliefs, as government restrictions, nationalist parties, and harassment aimed at minority faiths continues on a global upswing.

Religious antagonism saw its biggest surge in over a decade in 2016, with the world’s two biggest faith groups—Christians and Muslims—ranking as the top victims of political restrictions and social hostility, according to a new Pew Research Center report analyzing religious freedom in 198 countries and territories.

Christians reported incidents of harassment in more places worldwide than any other tradition: 144 countries in 2016, compared to 128 countries in 2015 and 108 in 2014. Incidents include discrimination, verbal assault, physical attacks, arrests, and the destruction of religious sites.

Islam, the world’s second largest religion, is close behind Christianity: Muslims suffered harassment in 142 countries in 2016, up from 125 in 2015 and 100 in 2014.

The Pew report comes just weeks after the US State Department reviewed an annual assessment of religious freedom across the globe.

“The state of religious freedom is dire,” said Sam Brownback, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, last month. “We have work to do. We must move religious freedom forward—we must defend it in every corner of the globe.”

Religious restrictions ramping up

Pew’s overall findings correlate with Brownback’s disappointment: Religious repression is pervasive and rising.

“When combining measures of government restrictions and social hostilities, more than four-in-ten countries (42%) had high or very high levels of overall religious restrictions in 2016,” ...