Christian persecuted church agencies, Release International and Open Doors, are casting serious doubts on the accuracy of the latest All Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion and Belief’s study of global restrictions on religion.
The 12th annual (2019) Pew Report maintains that, globally, social hostilities related to religion declined and the number of countries with terrorist activity related to religion also reduced for a fifth consecutive year, although government restrictions remained at the highest levels.
The Report examined 198 countries and territories, before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. It shows that 43 countries (22%) had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ levels of social hostilities. That is down from 53 countries (27%) in 2018, and from a peak of 65 countries (33%) in 2012. These figures have fluctuated since the study began in 2007, but the number of countries with at least ‘high’ levels of social hostilities related to religion is now the lowest since 2009.
Release International notes with concern that government restrictions on religious freedom worldwide remain at the highest levels since Pew’s records began. It also insists that Covid has been a game changer. The pandemic has even been used as a tool of persecution – to deny marginalised Christians relief aid, for example.
Furthermore, more up-to-date indicators suggest violent persecution is rising around the world, and not just by governments. In India, for example, increasing numbers of states passed anti-conversion laws in 2021; there has also been a sharp rise in attacks against Christians by Hindu nationalists, such that they are heading for their worst year of persecution on record.
Pew’s statement does not correspond with Open Doors’ findings either. The threat and the size of the Islamic terrorist movement in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased. Although this is not exclusively against Christians, the African Church is an important target, often the first, of jihadis. Their violence is often directed against government officials and Christian civilians, and then flows into other parts of society.
