Religious persecution has worsened

According to the RFR map, 28 states are marked in red as “hot countries” (indicating persecution), denoting the most dangerous places in the world for practicing religion freely, and 33 are orange indicating high levels of discrimination. In 47 of these countries the situation has worsened since the last report was published, whereas things only improved, in terms of religious freedom, in nine of them.

One of the main conclusions of ACN’s report is that minority religious communities are in an increasingly dire situation, and in some cases face the threat of extinction due to a combination of terrorism, attacks on their cultural heritage, and more subtle measures such as the proliferation of anti-conversion laws, manipulation of electoral rules and financial restrictions. However, there are also cases of majority religious communities being persecuted, such as in Nicaragua and Nigeria.

Impunity is on the rise

Over the past two years, the report also notes the global increase of the power and scope of authoritarian governments and fundamentalist leaders who seek to exercise limitless power and are both jealous and fearful of the spiritual authority and mobilisation capacity of religious communities. This has a deadly effect on religious freedom. Impunity has become a constant around the world, and in 36 countries (18%) attackers are rarely, if ever, prosecuted for their crimes.

The silence on the part of the international community contributes to this culture of impunity for regimes considered to be strategically important for the West, such as China and India, which end up not being subjected to international sanctions or any other consequences for their violations of religious freedom. The same applies to countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan.

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