A study by Pew Research Center's five-year research on government restrictions on religion (GRI) found the rate high in several countries, with authorities imposing curbs on religious activities in nations across the world.
The Government Restrictions Index was at 1.8 when Pew Research began tracking the restrictions in 2007, the survey said. In 2021, religious groups faced harassment by governments in 183 of 198 countries analysed. According to the survey, India had the second-highest level of social hostilities among the countries.
Shedding a light on Social Hostilities Index (SHI)score in India, the report said the country showed high levels of social hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2022, the global median scores on both indexes Government Restrictions Index (GRI) and the Social Hostilities Index (SHI) remained the same as they were in 2021, at 3.0 out of 10.0 on the Government Restrictions Index (its peak level) and at 1.6 out of 10.0 on the Social Hostilities Index, the study said.
China, Russia, Iran, Egypt, and Indonesia had the highest levels of government restrictions on religion among the 25 largest countries surveyed. All had “very high” GRI scores. On the other hand, the lowest levels of government restrictions were noticed in Japan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, the Philippines, and the US.
The US had “moderate” levels of government restrictions while the other four had “low” levels, the survey said. The survey analysed various real-life scenarios that restrict the free practice of religion.
Pew Research’s Government Restrictions Index (GRI) includes laws, policies, and actions that regulate and limit religious beliefs and practices.
During the survey, respondents were asked: do countries in which government authorities pressure religious groups also tend to be placed in which social groups and individuals are hostile toward religious groups? The second question was do countries with relatively few government restrictions on religion also tend to be places with relatively few social hostilities involving religion?
For the most part, the answer remains in the affirmative. According to the study, government restrictions and social hostilities tend to go hand in hand. Over the five-year period, roughly three-quarters of all countries had either “high” or “very high” levels of both kinds of restrictions, or they had “low” or “moderate” levels of both kinds of restrictions.
Country-specific data
Sixty-two per cent of the countries and territories analysed (123 out of 198 studied) showed low or moderate GRI scores and SHI scores, on average, from 2018 through 2022. South Korea, Canada and the United States were examples of these countries. Egypt and India were among 24 countries, constituting 12% who had high or very high GRI scores and SHI scores, on average, in the same five-year period.
China and Cuba are featured among 32 countries which had high or very high GRI scores but had low or moderate SHI scores. Brazil and the Philippines were among 19 countries which had low or moderate GRI scores but were in the high or very high range of SHI scores. According to the study, most countries that had high or very high GRI scores nevertheless had low or moderate SHI scores (32 of 56 countries, or 57%). Researchers looked at mean (i.e., average) GRI and SHI scores over the most recent five years of the study (2018-2022).
A majority of countries (123 out of 198 studied, or 62%) have scored in the “low” to “moderate” range on both the GRI and the SHI, on average, from 2018 through 2022. Nearly all countries in this group (121 out of the 123) have populations under 60 million, including South Korea, Canada and Ghana. In 34 of these countries, the population is under 1 million.
Among the 34 countries with fewer than 1 million people, nine had mean SHI scores of 0.0 out of 10.0, meaning that from 2018 to 2022, no social hostilities were recorded for those countries. These countries include the small island states of Palau and Nauru. In addition, three countries with populations over 1 million – Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho – also had a mean SHI score of 0.0 during this period.)2
Looking regionally, 32 of 35 countries in the Americas had low or moderate scores on both scales in 2022, compared with 33 of 45 countries in Europe, 34 of 48 in sub-Saharan Africa, and 24 of 50 in the Asia-Pacific region. No countries in the Middle East-North Africa region had low or moderate scores on both the GRI and SHI.
Countries with ‘high’ or ‘very high’ GRI, SHI
Nine out of the 20 countries in the Middle East-North Africa region, including Iraq and Syria, fall in the category. By comparison, 10 of the 50 Asia-Pacific countries and four of the 45 European countries have been in the high or very high range on both indexes, on average, from 2018 through 2022. Just one of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa fell into these categories during that time span, and none of the 35 countries in the Americas did.
Among the 198 countries and territories analysed in the study, 32 had high or very high levels of government restrictions while also having low or moderate levels of social hostilities from 2018 to 2022.
Of the countries in this category, more than two-thirds (or 22 out of the 32) are classified as authoritarian on the 2022 Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).3 Most of these countries (20 of the 32) also have governments that give preferential treatment to certain favoured or official religions. And nine of the 32 have governments that our analysis classifies as being hostile to religious institutions more generally.4
Nigeria, India, Egypt, and Pakistan had “very high” SHI scores while Bangladesh fell into the “high” category. Japan, China, the US, Turkey, and South Africa had the lowest levels of social hostilities in this group. Turkey and South Africa had “moderate” levels of social hostilities, while the other three countries had “low” levels.
