A new Pew Research report looks at attitudes among Muslims in 39 countries on a wide range of topics, from science to sharia, democracy to religious freedom.*

Muslim public opinion varies significantly on how free people of other religions are to practice their faiths, particularly when taking into account the level of government restrictions on religion in the country.**

For instance, medians of more than eight-in-ten Muslims in countries with low or moderate government restrictions report that people of other faiths are very free to practice their religion freely (see chart).

By contrast, in countries with high or very high government restrictions on religion, substantially fewer Muslims reported that people of other religions were very free to practice their faiths, 60% and 58% respectively.

Muslim opinion on how free others are to practice their faith also varies considerably by geographic region. Opinion that others are very free is highest in sub-Saharan Africa (median of 81%). A median more than seven-in-ten Muslims in Southern-Eastern Europe (74%) consider that others are very free to practice their faith. But in two regions, far fewer Muslims say others are very free to practice their faith: Asia-Pacific (60%) and the Middle East-North Africa region (56%).

The two countries where Muslims expressed in lowest numbers that others were very free to practice their faith are Egypt (31%) and Uzbekistan (26%). In the Pew Forum's latest report, Egypt had the highest level of government restrictions on religion. For instance, Egyptian law permits people to convert to Islam, but prohibits Muslims from converting to other faiths. 

Muslims' views on the freedom to practice other faiths are, however, part of a larger context. Many Muslims also think that their religious leaders should have at least some influence over political matters. And many express a desire for sharia – traditional Islamic law – to be recognized as the official law of their country.

For a further discussion of global trends in restrictions on religion - including in the Middle East after the political uprising known as the Arab Spring - see my recent TEDx Talk, "The Numbers of Religious Freedom."

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* The Pew Research report, "The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society," is based on surveys conducted across multiple years. Fifteen sub-Saharan countries with substantial Muslim populations were surveyed in 2008-2009 as part of a larger project that examined religion in that region. The methods employed in those countries – as well as some of the findings – are detailed in the Pew Research Center’s 2010 report “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” An additional 24 countries and territories were surveyed in 2011-2012. In 21 of these countries, Muslims make up a majority of the population.

** In separate studies, the Pew Forum has measured restrictions on religion around the globe since mid-2006, scoring countries and territories on a Government Restrictions Index (GRI) measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs or practices. The GRI is comprised of 20 measures of restrictions, including efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversions, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups..

Pew Research research has completely changed the way people now talk about religious freedom. It has shifted from the 20th Century paradigm that focused primarily on the types of government restrictions seen in communist countries to a 21st Century paradigm that recognizes that the actions of groups in society can affect religious freedom as much and perhaps even more than the actions of governments.

Pew Research has not only helped shift the focus to a 21st Century paradigm, it also uses 21st century social scientific methods to study and track.*

But religious freedom is very difficult to measure because. How can you measure how freed someone is? So, Pew Research measures restrictions on religious freedom that come from governments AND from groups in society.

Each year since 2006, a team led by senior researcher Brian J. Grim at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life has carefully studied the laws and constitutions for 198 countries and territories as well as human rights reports from major international sources – such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the European Union and the U.S. State Department. Based on these sources, Pew Forum researchers count up and categorize each reported government restriction on religion and each reported social hostility involving religion, and use these data to create indexes.

There’s one important thing to keep in mind – these Pew Research studies do not place a value judgment on any particular restriction. In France, for instance, the government’s ban of the burqa – the Muslim full body covering – has considerable political and public support. In our study, this ban still counts as a restriction regardless of its popularity. In that way, Pew Research is like a thermometer. Their job is to measure, not to diagnose or suggest a treatment.

See Brian J. Grim's TEDx Talk - The Numbers of Religious Freedom - for more on the methodology and the findings. To take an "International Religious Freedom Literacy" quiz, see his blog.

* See the methodology of the Pew Forum’s 2009 report, “Global Restrictions on Religion,” for a discussion of the conceptual basis for measuring restrictions on religion.

When you complete and submit the quiz, you'll get to see the answers!

Pew Research research has completely changed the way people now talk about religious freedom. It has shifted from the 20th Century paradigm that focused primarily on the types of government restrictions seen in communist countries to a 21st Century paradigm that recognizes that the actions of groups in society can affect religious freedom as much and perhaps even more than the actions of governments.

Pew research has not only helped shift the focus to a 21st Century paradigm, it also uses 21st century social scientific methods to study and track.

But religious freedom is very difficult to measure because. How can you measure how freed someone is? So, Pew Research measures restrictions on religious freedom that come from governments AND from groups in society.

Each year since 2006, a team led by senior researcher Brian J. Grim at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life has carefully studied the laws and constitutions for 198 countries and territories as well as human rights reports from major international sources – such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the European Union and the U.S. State Department. Based on these sources, Pew Forum researchers count up and categorize each reported government restriction on religion and each reported social hostility involving religion, and use these data to create indexes.

There’s one important thing to keep in mind – these Pew Research studies do not place a value judgment on any particular restriction. In France, for instance, the government’s ban of the burqa – the Muslim full body covering – has considerable political and public support. In our study, this ban still counts as a restriction regardless of its popularity. In that way, Pew Research is like a thermometer. Their job is to measure, not to diagnose or suggest a treatment.

See Brian J. Grim's TEDx Talk - The Numbers of Religious Freedom - for more on the methodology and the findings. And, to take an "International Religious Freedom Literacy" quiz, see his blog.

The Pew Research study finds approximately three-quarters of the world's population live in countries with high or very high restrictions on religion coming either from governments or groups in society.

Nearly two-thirds of the world's people live in countries with high government restrictions on religion. Government restrictions range from limits on religious symbols, which occur in about a quarter of all countries, to very high government favoritism of one religion or religious group above all others. The study finds that, on average, social hostilities involving religion are 3.5 times higher in countries with very high government favoritism of religion than in countries with low levels of favoritism.

Government restrictions can also cross borders and be enforced by governments thousands of miles away, as was the case when Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari was extradited by Malaysian authorities to Saudi Arabia to face charges of blasphemy, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.

The Pew Research study also finds that about half of the world's population lives in countries with high social hostilities. Social hostilities include religion-related terrorist activities, which occur in more than a third of countries - allegedly including the recent bombings in Boston. 

* The research and graphics in the talk are the result of a collaborative effort by many researchers, editors, and web and graphic designers at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Special thanks to Angelina Theodorou for research assistance, to Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa for data management, and to Diana Yoo for the graphics and animation used in the talk. The methodology used by the Pew Forum was developed by senior researcher and director of cross-national data Brian J. Grim in consultation with other members of the Pew Research Center staff, building on a methodology that Grim and professor Roger Finke developed while at Penn State University’s Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA).

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings reportedly has  indicated that his older brother was the mastermind of the attack. CNN reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that his brother, Tamerlan, was motivated by jihadist thought and the idea that Islam is under attack.

Such a motivation for violence is an example of the type of social hostilities involving religion reported in a Pew Research study.

The study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found that United States was among the 16 countries whose scores on both the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index increased by one point or more in the year ending in mid-2010. This was the first time scores for the U.S. increased on both indexes during the four-year period covered in this study.

The U.S. score on the Social Hostilities Index also rose, from 2.0 as of mid-2009 to 3.4 as of mid-2010, moving the U.S. from the lower end of the moderate range of hostilities to the upper end of the moderate range. (Social Hostilities Index scores 3.6 or higher are categorized as high by this study.)

A key factor behind the increase in the U.S. score on the Social Hostilities Index was a spike in religion-related terrorist attacks in the United States in the year ending in mid-2010. In November 2009, for instance, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan – allegedly inspired by the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – gunned down and killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas. In December 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear while aboard a Detroit-bound aircraft. And in May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born resident of Bridgeport, Conn., attempted to set off a bomb in New York’s Times Square.

Other forms of social hostilities involving religion also increased in the U.S. during the most recent year studied. In Murfreesboro, Tenn., for example, some county residents attempted to block the construction of a mosque in the spring of 2010 by claiming, as reported by the Justice Department, that Islam is a “political ideology rather than a religion” and that “mosques are political rather than religious in nature.” (The mosque officially opened in August 2012, but opponents are still challenging the mosque in federal court.)

The increase in social hostilities in the U.S. also reflects a rise in the number of reported religion-related workplace discrimination complaints. The number of such complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rose from 3,386 in the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2009, to 3,790 in the year ending on Sept. 30, 2010. The number of cases that the EEOC determined had “reasonable cause” rose from 136 to 314 during this period.

In the photo above, a Boston police officer clears Boylston Street following an explosion at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon in Boston, Monday, April 15, 2013. Two explosions shattered the euphoria at the finish line on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry off the injured while the stragglers were rerouted away from the smoking site of the blasts. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The stage is set for the most original and high-tech event on religious freedom ever held at the Vatican.

On April 19, TEDx, a global knowledge movement where speakers give "the talk of their lives" in 18 minutes or less, will for the first time focus on religious freedom.

The speakers range from Muslim graffiti artist Mohammed Ali to Sister Alicia Vacas fighting human trafficking in the Middle East, and from Cuban-born pop singer Gloria Estefan to former NBA basketball star Vlade Divac. Architect Daniel Libeskind will describe his Freedom Tower that is rising out of the ashes of 9/11 at Ground Zero, and Wenzong Wang will introduce his project providing free education for tribal children in Southwestern China.

A rabbi, a cardinal, an astronomer, a friar and a social scientist kick off the event, looking at networks for common ground.* Indeed, a forthcoming Pew Research study finds much room for common ground - members of one religion or another have faced harassment due to religion or belief in 93% of countries worldwide. Because no religion is immune to harassment, religious differences that can divide give way to the common ground of shared concerns.

Why Religious Freedom? Organizer (or "Curator" in TEDx terms) Giovanna Abbiati explains, "This theme is important if we want to talk about peace. This is the scenario: in secularized society often signs of religion are banned in working places, religious symbols hidden. In other countries restriction of religion is very high. The Pew Research Center reports that more than 2.2 billion people – nearly a third of the world’s population – live in the 23 countries with increasing government restrictions or social hostilities involving religion."

And as I recently wrote in ZENIT, policymakers from the White House, the U.S. State Department, the European Parliament and the United Nations have taken notice of the Pew Research Center’s ongoing study of religious restrictions because it provides a quantitative framework they can use to monitor changes in religious restrictions over time, across the world, in specific geographical regions and in individual countries.

Tune in or come join me at the TEDx conference on April 19 to get the Pew Research Center's latest information on religious restrictions and hostilities affecting the world today.

* Rabbi David Rosen, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, Planetary Scientist Guy Consolmagno, Friar Edward Daleng, and sociologist Brian Grim.

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(Dr. Brian J. Grim is Senior Researcher and Director of Cross-National Data at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Report Link: http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Tide-of-Restrictions-on-Religion.aspx)

As sectarian violence affects more than 1-in-8 countries worldwide, Egyptian Coptic Christians gather around four coffins during a funeral service at the Saint Mark Coptic cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, April 7. Several Egyptians including 4 Christians and a Muslim were killed in sectarian clashes before dawn in Qalubiya, just outside of Cairo, on Saturday. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Just a week earlier, Amnesty International reported on a recent increase in tensions in Wasta (about one hundred kilometers south of Cairo), highlighting the vulnerability of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the country.

A 2011 Pew Research report noted that government restrictions in Egypt were very high and that "many of the restrictions in Egypt were directed at Coptic Christians, who form one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East and North Africa." While President Morsi's office condemned the recent violence, Al-Jazeera reports that confrontations between Muslims and Copts have increased in Egypt since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Egypt is not the only country experiencing sectarian violence. According to a 2012 Pew Research study, acts of sectarian violence occurred in more than 1-in-8 countries worldwide in the year ending in mid-2010, the latest year for which data are available, up from fewer than 1-in-10 just several years earlier.

Other recent acts of sectarian violence include:

- On April 1, the U.S. State Department issued a warning to U.S. citizens to avoid all travel to Lebanon due to potential kidnappings, sectarian violence and tension along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

- More than 12,000 Muslim Rohingyas were displaced in Burma (Myanmar) in March due to ongoing sectarian conflict with the Buddhist-majority population.

- As an extension of the tensions in Burma, a deadly clash in Indonesia occurred between Burmese Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas being held at an immigration detention center on April 5.

- Shia Muslims in Pakistan continue to be targets of sectarian attacks in the Sunni Muslim-majority country.

For more information on the rising tide of social hostilities involving religion and government restrictions on religion around the world, see the 2012 report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Restrictions on religious freedom in North Korea - which external observers rate as among the world's most severe - cannot be rated by the Pew Research Center because independent, on-the-ground observers are kept out of Kim Jong-un's secretive regime.

While this is a testimony to the methodological integrity of Pew Research, such paucity of information makes it highly problematic to assess the situation as Kim's regime claims to "enter a state of war" with South Korea and, by extension, with the U.S.

Nevertheless, the sources used by the Pew Forum to assess restrictions on religion in 198 other countries clearly indicate that North Korea's government is among the most repressive in the world with respect to religion as well as other civil and political liberties.

What do the sources say?

The U.S. State Department's 2011 Report on International Religious Freedom, for example, says that "Genuine freedom of religion does not exist" in North Korea.

The International Crisis Group describes the godlike status of Kim Jong-un: North Korean propaganda refers to the Great Leader as the 'brain' for the 'national body.' "North Koreans are indoctrinated to believe that 'freedom and national independence' are only possible by submitting to and supporting the leader - even if it means sacrificing one’s own life."

Human Rights Watch states that the government "does not allow ... religious freedom. Arbitrary arrest, detention, lack of due process, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees remain serious and pervasive problems. North Korea also practices collective punishment for various anti-state offenses, for which it enslaves hundreds of thousands of citizens in prison camps, including children."

For instance, in one of the rare cases coming to international attention, Amnesty International reports that in June, 2010, Mrs. Ri Hyun-ok, 33 years old, was publicly executed in the north-western city of Ryongchon (near the border with China) on charges of distributing Bibles and espionage. Ri Hyun-ok's parents, husband and three children were sent to a political prison camp in the north-eastern city of Hoeryong.

According to Human Rights Without Frontiers, "North Korea totally lacks religious freedom. Its religious delegations are made up of government officials. This way, the regime can claim that 'religious pluralism' exists in the country."

Freedom House observes that freedom of religion does not exist in practice. "State-sanctioned churches maintain a token presence in Pyongyang. However, intense state indoctrination and repression preclude free exercise of religion."

And the 2012 report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concludes that in North Korea there "continue to be reports of severe religious freedom abuses ... including discrimination and harassment of both authorized and unauthorized religious activity; the arrest, torture, and possible execution of those conducting clandestine religious activity; and the mistreatment and imprisonment of asylum-seekers repatriated from China, particularly those suspected of engaging in religious activities, having religious affiliations, or possessing religious literature."

Photo: North Korean army officers punch the air as they chant slogans during a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday, March 29, 2013. Tens of thousands of North Koreans turned out for the mass rally at the main square in Pyongyang in support of their leader Kim Jong-un's call to arms.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf arrived in Karachi yesterday - where he faces Taliban death threats - saying he has "come to save Pakistan." A recent Pew Research study finds that Pakistan has the highest level of social hostilities involving religion of any country as well as high government restrictions on religion.

For instance, in Pakistan, the GOVERNMENT makes blasphemy - remarks or actions considered to be critical of God - punishable by imprisonment or death. On the SOCIAL side, assassins killed two prominent Pakistani politicians – Shahbaz Bhatti (the only Catholic Minister in the government) and Salman Taseer (the governor of Punjab and a Muslim) – when they spoke out against the blasphemy law.

Indeed, Muslims are often prosecuted under Pakistan's blasphemy laws. For instance, Pakistani police are investigating Sherry Rehman, the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, on blasphemy charges.If convicted, she could be sentenced to death.

Also, in a highly publicized case last summer, a 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan was arrested and detained for several weeks after she was accused of burning pages from the Quran. The girl was released after an imam at a local mosque was accused of planting evidence against her. But the terms included bail set at $10,500 -- an exorbitant sum in a country where the average annual income is less than $1000.

And on March 18, the New York Times reported that mobs burned down a Pakistani Christian village near Lahore, also related to allegations of blasphemy. Lahore is also the site of a 2010 massacre of Pakistani Ahmadiyyas, who are considered apostates by Pakistani law.

Blasphemy and apostasy laws are closely associated not only with higher restrictions, but also with increases in religious restrictions and hostilities:
- Solid majority (59%) of countries with anti-blasphemy laws already have high restrictions on religion
- Among 44 countries enforcing anti-blasphemy laws: Restrictions up in 10, down in only one
- In the 20 countries penalizing apostasy, social hostilities are more than twice as high as other countries
- More than one-in-five countries worldwide (22%) penalize blasphemy or apostasy; some face death
- Read and watch Aljazzera's March 22, 2013, report, Murder in God's Name.

Beyond violence associated with blasphemy and apostasy laws, Pakistan experiences numerous other acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations and social groups, including mob or sectarian violence, religion-related terrorism, harassment over religious attire and other religion-related intimidation or abuse.

For instance, the BBC recently reported that explosions in a Muslim Shiite neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, left dozens dead, increasing concerns for the safety of the country's minority Shiite Muslims who have recently faced other deadly attacks in the Sunni-Muslim-majority country. Also see:
- Bombings targeting Muslim Shiites in Iraq & Pakistan occur as sectarian violence affects 1-in-8 countries worldwide

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