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A new international study has found that government and social harassment of Muslims has increased around the world over the past six years.
A new international study has found that government and social harassment of Muslims has increased around the world over the past six years, revealing that almost three quarters of the world population of all faiths have experienced high level of religious social hostilities.
“The Pew report is a chilling reminder that religious freedom is losing ground in much of the world,” Charles C. Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum in Washington, told Religion News Service on Tuesday, January 14.
“The rise in social hostilities toward religion in 2012 is a harbinger of much worse to come.”
Examining the period between 2007 and 2012, the report gives government a score based on 20 questions about government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices.
They include efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversions, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.
The Pew Research Center’s report issued two indices, based on statistics from the years 2007-2012.
The first one is Government Restrictions Index (GRI), which measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices.
The second is the Social Hostilities Index (SHI), which measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society.
Government restrictions include political efforts to ban conversions, limit preaching, or privilege some religious group over others.
Social hostilities include armed conflict, terrorism, sectarian violence, harassment, intimidation or abuse motivated by religious factors.
“One of the common things we see in that group of countries is sectarian conflict,” said Brian J. Grim, senior researcher at Pew Research.
“In Pakistan, even though minority religious groups like Christians face hostility, there’s also inter-Muslim conflict between Sunnis, Shias and Ahmadi Muslims.”
The greatest levels of social hostilities toward religion were felt in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Somalia, Israel and Iraq, according to the report.
Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Maldives and Syria imposed the strictest government restrictions.
Sharp Rise
Released on Tuesday, the report showed that 74 percent of the world’s population experienced high levels of social hostility towards religion, up from 52 percent in 2011.
The sharp rise is due to hostilities in China, which for the first time in the survey’s six-year history, scored a “high” level of religious strife.
The reported incidents were mainly against Uighur Muslims in the world’s most populous country.
For instance, a Han Chinese man accosted a Uighur Muslim girl in Henan province and lifted her veil in November 2012. In response, violent protests broke out as hundreds of Uighurs demonstrated against the incident.
In Moldova, two men attacked a Muslim woman in the capital city of Chisinau, calling her a “terrorist” and tearing her headscarf.
Christians and Muslims, who make up more than half of the world’s population, have been stigmatized in the largest number of countries. Muslims and Jews have suffered the greatest level of hostility in six years, the report said.
Christians were harassed in 110 countries, Muslims in 109 and Jews in 71.
Harassment against Hindus, Buddhists, folk religionists and members of other faith traditions also increased by country.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/global/468141-religious-harassment-increases-globally.html
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