{"id":70166,"date":"2022-11-29T09:50:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2022\/11\/29\/restrictions-in-the-25-most-populous-countries\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T17:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T22:16:24","slug":"restrictions-in-the-25-most-populous-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2022\/11\/29\/restrictions-in-the-25-most-populous-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"4. Restrictions in the 25 most populous countries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CORRECTION (Dec. 19, 2025): Some of the text in Chapter 4 has been corrected with updated SHI figures for 2019. Germany is now described as experiencing a \u201cmodest decrease,\u201d rather than a \u201clarge decline,\u201d in its SHI score between 2019 and 2020. Refer to the errata page<\/a> for details.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 5 billion people \u2013 almost three-quarters of the global population \u2013 live in the world\u2019s 25 most populous countries. Looking at the levels of restrictions on religion in just these countries can help illuminate how a very sizable segment of the world\u2019s population may be affected by government policies or social hostilities involving religion. At the same time, it is important to note that restrictions on religion analyzed in this study do not affect everyone in a given country the same way, and that in some cases minority religious groups may be impacted more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, the countries in this group that had the highest levels of overall <\/strong>restrictions (both government restrictions and social hostilities) were India, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria. The countries with the lowest levels of overall restrictions among the 25 most populous countries were Japan, the United States, Italy, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at just government restrictions<\/strong> on religion, the countries with the highest levels from this group of 25 were China, Russia, Iran, Indonesia and Egypt. All had \u201cvery high\u201d scores on the Government Restrictions Index (GRI). Meanwhile, the lowest levels of government restrictions in this group were recorded in Japan, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Philippines and Brazil. (Brazil had \u201cmoderate\u201d levels of government restrictions while the other four had \u201clow\u201d levels.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the most populous countries, the highest levels of social hostilities<\/strong> involving religion were in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh. All these countries with the exception of Bangladesh had \u201cvery high\u201d social hostilities in 2020, while Bangladesh fell into the \u201chigh\u201d category on the Social Hostilities Index (SHI). Japan, China, Tanzania, the U.S. and Iran had the lowest levels of social hostilities in this group. The U.S. and Iran had \u201cmoderate\u201d levels of social hostilities, while the other three countries had \u201clow\u201d levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In several of the most populous countries, levels of government restrictions mirrored social hostilities. For example, Japan ranked \u201clow\u201d on both the GRI and SHI, Italy and the U.S. had \u201cmoderate\u201d scores on both indexes, and Egypt had \u201cvery high\u201d government restrictions and social hostilities. In other countries, the GRI and SHI levels were sharply different. In China, for example, government restrictions continued to fall into the \u201cvery high\u201d category, while social hostilities stayed at a \u201clow\u201d level. Iran had \u201cvery high\u201d government restrictions and \u201cmoderate\u201d social hostilities. Conversely, Nigeria had a \u201cmoderate\u201d score on the GRI and a \u201cvery high\u201d SHI score in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the government restrictions category, no country among the 25 most populous experienced a large change (2 points or more) in its score. Most countries had small changes in their GRI scores (less than 1 point), while Egypt had a modest decrease of 1.0 point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were more fluctuations from 2019 to 2020 on the Social Hostilities Index. Ethiopia, Germany, Russia and Tanzania had modest decreases, and France, Italy and South Africa experienced modest increases<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several countries among the 25 most populous fell into different categories on the SHI in 2020 than they did in 2019. For example, Thailand\u2019s and Russia\u2019s social hostilities fell from \u201chigh\u201d to \u201cmoderate,\u201d while Tanzania\u2019s declined from \u201cmoderate\u201d to \u201clow.\u201d South Africa, France and the Democratic Republic of the Congo rose from \u201cmoderate\u201d to \u201chigh\u201d levels of social hostilities, while Egypt moved from \u201chigh\u201d to \u201cvery high.\u201d In France<\/a>, there were physical assaults against members of several religious groups, including Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Jews and Muslims. In addition, in October 2020, a Muslim teenager killed a teacher in a Paris suburb in retaliation for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a lesson on freedom of expression. (Police later killed the attacker and charged 10 other people, including an imam, with assisting him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CORRECTION (Dec. 19, 2025): Some of the text in Chapter 4 has been corrected with updated SHI figures for 2019. Germany is now described as experiencing a \u201cmodest decrease,\u201d rather than a \u201clarge decline,\u201d in its SHI score between 2019 and 2020. Refer to the errata page for details. 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