The Aid to the Church in Suffering (AIS) foundation said Thursday that “nearly 4.9 million people,” or 62.5% of the world’s population, live in countries “where religious freedom is severely restricted.” Furthermore, “the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is violated in approximately one third of the world’s countries.”
According to the report “Religious Freedom in the World 2023”, released by the Catholic organization, the situation has worsened in 47 of the 196 countries under study, China and India being where “the worst violators” of religious freedom are found.
These violations are illustrated in various ways, including the destruction of religious heritage and symbols, the proliferation of anti-conversion laws, or mass surveillance.
The report also says that there were serious acts of religious persecution in 28 countries, the majority (13) in Africa, where the figures “are alarming”.
“In many cases, the violence is motivated by a toxic marriage between Islamic jihadists, organized crime and local thugs,” the document says.
One of the main “theatres of jihadist activity” is concentrated in Mozambique, the only Portuguese-speaking country indicated on the map under study.
The AIS foundation also denounces “an increasingly silent reaction by the international community to the atrocities committed by strategically important autocratic regimes”, in reference to India and China, but also in countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan.
The report of the AIS foundation will be presented this Thursday, in the Assembly of the Republic, at 7:00 p.m. Since 1999, annual editions of this report have been published, looking at religious freedom in 196 countries and territories.
Source: TSF
