The Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom presented its initial findings regarding world trends in religious freedom July 9, ranking countries' religious intolerance on a scale of one to seven and naming radical Islam as the greatest threat to religious freedom worldwide.
The findings are part of the center's latest book, "Religious Freedom in the World, 2007," which will be released next year and analyzes 100 countries, focusing on those countries where religious freedom is least protected.
Religious freedom rankings were sorted according to geographical regions and also by the prevailing religion present in each country. A score of one was the best, while seven indicated severe religious intolerance.
Most countries with the poorest rankings were found in Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe, while the best-ranked included the United States, Canada and countries in Western Europe. Countries in which the population is predominantly Catholic or Protestant were found to have a high degree of religious freedom, with the exception of a few, including Cuba, Colombia and Zimbabwe.
Religious tolerance has been growing in Latin America as a whole during the last 20 years, and it is now one of the most tolerant areas in the world, said Paul Marshall, a senior fellow with the institute, who, as part of a five-person panel, presented the findings.
Governments and regimes which restrict religious freedom do so for a number of reasons, Marshall said in an interview with Catholic News Service.
Although the survey showed that decreases in religious freedom were often accompanied by a national decline in economic and political well-being, many regimes have interests --- whether religious or political --- that are distinct from those of the country's people, he said. Several regimes seek to cultivate their own religious motives using the government as their tool. Other regimes, such as China, simply want to control all activity within their borders, religion included, Marshall said.
In his opening statement July 9, Marshall cited specific governmental violations of religious freedom, including China, where several Catholic bishops are under house arrest. The Chinese government also has imprisoned more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners since 1999. In Eritrea, unauthorized meetings of more than seven people are illegal and entire wedding parties have been imprisoned, Marshall said.
The conditions in prisons are harsh, Marshall said. In Eritrea "in 2003, 57 teenagers found with Bibles were jailed in metal shipping containers in the desert; all but six died," he said. "Behind these statistics are very terrible --- but also very inspiring --- human stories."
The panel emphasized the importance of religious freedom as the "first freedom." One panelist, the Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, referenced the statement by Pope John Paul II that without freedom of conscience and of religion all other freedoms become meaningless.
The study found that restrictions on freedom of religion to some degree affected all groups, including agnostics and atheists. Whether a country was predominantly secular or favored an established religion had little to do with that country's record for religious tolerance.
The center found that most countries with high Islamic populations typically offer the least protection of religious freedom, with the exception of Mali and Senegal in East Africa. The poorest-scoring countries include Sudan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Iran. The low ranking of Islamic nations means that the greatest struggle for religious freedom is being fought within the Islamic community, Rev. Land said.
Brian Grim, a senior Pew research fellow on religion and world affairs, said the assessment included government restrictions on --- and favoritism and social regulation of --- religion, including harassment, threats and social stigma against those who convert to another religion.
The scores assigned to each country reflect all these factors and are based on a scale used by the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report.
A summary of the Hudson Institute's findings and rankings of religious freedom by country is available online at: www.hudson.org/religion.
---CNS |