Religious Persecution International
Doug Bandow ("Assyrian International News Agency," April 20, 2010)
Washington, USA - The U.S. is a rarity among nations. Among its unique
attributes is a commitment to religious liberty.
A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life explores religious
persecution around the world. According to Pew: "64 nations -- about
one-third of the countries in the world -- have high or very high restrictions
on religion. But because some of the most restrictive countries are very
populous, nearly 70 percent of the world's 6.8 billion people live in
countries with high restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls
on
religious minorities."
Include moderate restrictions, which most Americans also would consider to
be intolerable, and more than half of the world's nations limit religious
liberty. Fully 86 percent of the globe's people face significant limits on
their right to worship God.
The Americas, including the U.S., happily have the least restrictions in
both cases. The U.S. is joined by Brazil, Britain, Italy, Japan, South
Africa, and the United Kingdom in the free category.
In contrast, explains Pew, "the Middle East-North Africa has the highest
government and social restrictions on religion." Combine government limits
with social attacks, and the worst nations include Egypt, India, Indonesia,
Iran, and Pakistan. It is no accident that four of the five are Islamic.
Although communist states tend to employ among the most restrictive policies,
it is Islam where publics and governments alike are united in their
commitment to persecute religious minorities.
Not all religious persecution is created equal. The Pew survey helpfully
separates government regulation and social antagonism. Explains Pew:
"government policies and social hostilities do not always move in tandem.
Vietnam
and China, for instance, have high government restrictions on religion but
are in the moderate or low range when it comes to social hostilities.
Nigeria and Bangladesh follow the opposite pattern: high in social hostilities
but moderate in terms of government actions."
Still, in general countries that rank high on one measure are likely to be
bad on the other. Both kinds of restrictions are shockingly common.
Explains Pew: "In 75 countries (38%), for example, national or local
governments
limit efforts by religious groups or individuals to persuade others to join
their faith. In 178 countries (90%), religious groups must register with
the government for various purposes" -- which in the majority of instances
results in discrimination against at least some faiths.
There were public tensions between religious groups in nearly nine of ten
cases. Moreover, observes Pew, "In 126 countries (64%), these hostilities
involved physical violence. In 49 countries (25%), private individuals or
groups used force or the threat of force to compel adherence to religious
norms."
Pew refuses to judge the appropriateness of particular restrictions.
Countries that act against "cults" often attempt to justify their actions in
terms of protecting personal freedom. Although one can argue for or against any
particular policy, in practice virtually all government restrictions
unfairly limit individual liberty. Social hostility usually is backed by
intimidation if not violence. Thus, both public policies and private actions
threaten fundamental religious liberties, especially of religious minorities.
It isn't possible to precisely measure state persecution. Pew asks 20
questions and creates four broad ranges of results.
Actual practice is more important. Explains Pew: "it is not sufficient
simply to look at formal constitutional protections when gauging the level of
government restrictions on religion. Most (76%) of the 198 countries and
territories included in the study call for freedom of religion in their
constitutions and basic laws, and an additional 20% protect some religious
practices." However, barely a quarter of those governments actually enforce
their constitutions and laws.
Similarly, many governments implement facially neutral legal provisions in
a biased manner. Of those governments with registration requirements, 59%
act to disable or discriminate against disfavored groups. Pew cites
Singapore, which has effectively banned Jehovah's Witnesses and the
Unification
Church in this way.
Public subsidies are used to much the same effect. Most governments (86%)
subsidize religious groups. About three-quarter of countries do so in a
discriminatory fashion. Many countries restrict or ban missionaries and
proselytizing. Almost seven of ten governments harass disfavored religious
groups; nearly half of states employ physical coercion.
Democracy is no guarantee against severe limits on religious liberty -- Pew
points to Israel and Turkey. However, the toughest restrictions on the
right to worship come from otherwise repressive governments which target
religious minorities. Saudi Arabia and Iran rank numbers one and two as the
most
restrictive states. (North Korea is off the charts, but the lack of
available information made that nation impossible for Pew to rate.) Other bad
actors are Uzbekistan, China, Egypt, Burma, Maldives, Eritrea, Malaysia, and
Brunei.
The Middle East and North Africa is the worst region. Asia is second,
though there is great variability within. Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the
Americas follow. The median score of the Middle East and North Africa is five
times that of the Americas.
The real surprise is Europe. Explains Pew: "The relatively high government
restrictions score for Europe's 45 countries is due in part to former
Communist countries, such as Russia, which have replaced state atheism with
state-favored religions that are accorded special protections or privileges."
Further, some Western European nations restrict "cults."
All told, Pew finds that 43 nations have high or very high restrictions.
Adds Pew: "because many of these are populous countries (including China,
India and Pakistan), more than half (57%) of the world's population lives with
high or very high government restrictions on religions." Just a quarter of
the globe's people live in societies which largely protect the freedom to
worship.
The other prong of religious liberty is "social hostilities," which Pew
defines as "acts of violence and intimidation by private individuals,
organizations or social groups." Repression is different from tension:
"Competition and even some degree of tension between religious groups may be
natural
in free societies, and the freer and more pluralistic the society, the more
open and visible the tensions may be."
Notably, many instances of social hostilities are generated by the
activities of other religious groups. States Pew, in more than half of nations
"it
is religious groups themselves that make attempts to stop other religious
groups from growing." The problem with Islam is pervasive. But in Russia the
Orthodox Church targets "religions deemed nontraditional, including other
Orthodox Christian congregations." Conversions are a particular flashpoint.
Roughly four of ten nations suffer from high or very high levels of social
hostilities. Nearly half of the world's people live in countries where
hostilities are high or very high. Explains Pew: "Often, the brunt falls on
religious minorities who are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a cultural
economic or political threat to the majority."
Interestingly, countries with the worst state policies are not invariably
the ones with the greatest social hostilities. Explains Pew: "Only one
country, Saudi Arabia, appears on both lists. Several others that are very
high
in social hostilities also score in the high range on government
restrictions," but some countries with the greatest religious social
antagonisms have
far fewer official restrictions on religious liberty. The greatest
hostilities are evident in Iraq, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia,
Bangladesh, Somalia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia.
Here, too, the Middle East and North Africa stands will above the rest of
the world. Next come Europe and the Asia-Pacific, where, surprisingly,
median social hostilities are roughly equal. Sub-Saharan Africa follows, with
the Americas far behind. The median score in the Middle East and North Africa
is more than seven times that in the Americas.
Explains Pew: "The relatively higher level of religious hostilities in
European societies is driven by widespread instances of anti-Semitism, tensions
between Muslim minorities and secular or Christian majorities, and a
somewhat general distrust of new religious groups." In the Americas only
Mexico
suffers from high levels of social hostilities.
Although as noted earlier there is a significant difference between the
worst government offenders and the worst social offenders, countries which
tend to persecute one way also often persecute to some degree the other way.
Saudi Arabia manages to fall into the very high on both indexes. Among the
world's 50 most populous states rating one very high and one high are 11
other nations: Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran Iraq, Israel,
Pakistan, Somalia, and Sudan. Smaller hyper-persecutors include Brunei,
Eritrea, Maldives, and Sri Lanka.
Clustered as the lowest of the low are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan,
Mozambique, Peru, Poland, South Korea, and Taiwan. (The U.S. rates among the
least in government restrictions but edges slightly into the moderate
category on social hostilities.)
Overall, notes Pew, "it is apparent that the two measures tend to move
together." While the relationship is loose, countries with higher social
hostilities are more likely to have greater government restrictions, and vice
versa.
Obviously, social attitudes often are deeply ingrained. Nevertheless,
nations with more limited information access tend to rate worse on both
persecution measures. This might be correlation -- authoritarian governments
are
more able and likely to persecute -- rather than causation. Nevertheless, the
finding offers the possibility that expanding information access might
help reduce religious persecution.
The U.S. government's ability to combat religious persecution is limited.
Washington can hardly go to war to liberate scores of other nations. Nor is
war a good answer: after all, the invasion of Iraq inadvertently loosed
that nation's worst Islamic demons, leading to the effective destruction of
Iraq's once vibrant Christian community.
Nevertheless, Americans should do all they can to highlight religious
persecution and aid foreign believers, irrespective of their particular faith,
seeking the right to worship God as they believe appropriate. There is no
more fundamental human right than freedom of conscience.
_______________________________________________
Centroids mailing list: [email protected]
http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com
Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
