CNA Staff, Mar 26, 2024 / 12:45 pm
Government restrictions on religion reached their highest levels ever in a key global survey this month, one that has been monitoring those trends for nearly two decades.
Pew Research said this month that its religious restriction and hostilities survey showed that in 2021, government restrictions on religion reached “a new peak globally,” registering “the highest global median score” in the nearly 20 years that they have been analyzing the global data.
Overall China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Algeria topped the report’s list of countries with “very high” government restrictions. Nigeria and India were the worst-ranked countries for social hostilities.
Pew in its report noted several changes to both lists. Between 2020 and 2021, Pakistan and Turkmenistan moved from the list of countries with “high” government restrictions to those with “very high” restrictions. The Eastern African country of Eritrea and the Southeast Asian country of Brunei both moved from the “very high” category to “high.”