Hong Kong protesters hold East Turkestan Uighur flags at a rally Dec. 22, 2019, in support of the human rights and religious rights of the Uighurs, most of whom are Muslim, in China’s Xinjiang region. (CNS photo/Lucy Nicholson, Reuters)
By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — Social hostilities against religious believers and churches dipped in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center report issued Sept. 30.
Government hostilities toward religion, though, remained at their highest level since Pew started conducting this research a dozen years ago.
In 2019, 43 countries had either “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities, down from 53 countries in 2018, and down from a peak of 65 countries in 2012, the report said.
On the government side, 180 countries had at least one instance, at some level, of government harassment against religious groups, compared with 175 countries in 2018. But 75 countries had either high or very high levels of overall restrictions on religion in 2019, down from 80 in 2018.
“We do see more fluctuations over the years with ups and downs,” said Samirah Majumdar, a Pew research associate and the primary researcher for the study. “Social hostilities are based more on incidents, while government hostilities are based on broad politics that don’t tend to change as much over time.”
Government interference in worship ranges from withholding permission for religious activities or prohibiting particular religious practices at any level of government, such as worship activities, wearing religious attire, adhering to grooming customs such as maintaining a beard, conscientious objection to military service, the use of certain substances in worship and following ritual burial practices.
One example cited in the report: “In Slovenia, where animal slaughter without prior stunning is prohibited, Muslims and Jews are not allowed to slaughter animals according to halal and kosher dietary guidelines.”
In 2019, 49 countries experienced at least some form of religion-related terrorism, “a record low for the study,” Pew said. That compares to 64 countries in 2018, and a record high of 82 in 2014, when the Islamic State was wreaking havoc in the Middle East and Boko Haram was plaguing Nigeria and neighboring nations.
