Washington D.C., Aug 18, 2011 / 03:55 am
More than 2.2 billion people live in countries where government restrictions on religion or social hostilities involving religion rose “substantially” in recent years, a new report says.
Restrictions on religious beliefs and practices substantially rose between mid-2006 and mid-2009 in 14 of the world’s 198 countries and substantially decreased in eight countries, says the Pew Forum’s report “Rising Restrictions on Religion.” Countries with rises in government restrictions on religion included Algeria, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Serbia and Malaysia.
Ten countries had a substantial increase in social hostilities: Bulgaria, China, Denmark, Mongolia, Nigeria, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.
Restrictions on religious beliefs and practices are “particularly common” in countries that prohibit blasphemy, apostasy or defamation of religion. By mid-2009, 59 countries had such laws, rules or policies at some level of government. Penalties ranged from fines to imprisonment or death and were enforced in 44 of the 59 countries.