A report by the Pew Research Center investigated the treatment of international Christians. They found that Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Iraq were the nations with the highest rates of Christian oppression. In these nations, both government restrictions and social hostility affect the ability of religious communities to express their faith. Normally these two forms of discrimination are linked. Overall the worldwide level of oppression has remained steady, but specific regions have gotten much more intolerant.
The report said Governmental attacks and social hostility toward various religions often “go hand in hand.” The study used two measures to quantify oppression. The GRI focuses on 20 criteria. These include limits on conversions and preaching, government efforts to ban a faith, and preferential treatment of one or many religious groups. The SHI measures mob violence, hostilities in the name of religion, and religious bias crimes.
This report examines 198 countries. 24 nations received high or very high SHI scores (higher than 3.6 out of 10 and high or very high GRI scores (4.5 or higher on a scale of 10). Four other countries were close to this category. This included India, Nigeria, and most interestingly Israel. 32 of the nations were low on social hostility but showed a high amount of government repression.
The Economist describes most of these as “undemocratic” and “authoritarian.” Samirah Majumdar, the report’s lead researcher says “Such regimes may tightly control religion as part of broader restrictions on civil liberties.” Many of these nations are in Central Asia and the post-Soviet Block. They also examined other questions about religious liberty worldwide.
The Project examined a number of issues including “whether countries with government restrictions tend to be places where they also have social hostilities; Do countries with relatively few government restrictions also tend to be places where they have relatively few social hostilities?” According to researchers, the results were inconclusive.
“We can’t exactly determine a causal link, but there are some patterns we were able to observe in the different groupings,” said Majumdar. “A lot of those countries have had sectarian tensions and violence reported over the years. In some cases, government actions can go hand in hand with what is happening socially in those countries.”
They found that countries with low or moderate scores on both indexes most often had populations under 60 million inhabitants. Overall the average of results stayed the same. However, in the Middle East and North Africa, the index went from 5.9 to 6.1. In sub-Saharan Africa, the GRI rose from 2.6 to 3.0 out of 10. This would indicate that tolerant countries are getting more tolerant and repressive nations are becoming more intolerant of religious minorities.
Oppression of Christians took different forms in different regions. Nigeria had the worst scores, which is due to violence stemming from Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa as well as criminal gangs. Iraq has increased its social hostility score. The Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces have imprisoned religious minorities. According to the report, the worldwide violence peaked in 2022. Other relevant issues were the rise of lawlessness in Haiti and the displacement of 60,000 Tibetans.