Meanwhile, the share of countries with \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cvery high\u201d levels of social hostilities<\/strong> involving religion \u2013 that is, acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society \u2013 remained stable in 2016 at 27%. Like government restrictions, social hostilities also peaked in 2012, particularly in the Middle East-North Africa region, which was still feeling the effects of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. The number of countries with high or very high levels of social hostilities declined in 2013 and has remained at about the same level since, but it is higher than it was during the baseline year of this study (2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In total in 2016, 83 countries (42%) had high or very high levels of overall restrictions<\/strong> on religion \u2013 whether resulting from government actions or from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations and social groups \u2013 up from 80 (40%) in 2015 and 58 (29%) in 2007.[1. For details about the thresholds for these categories and the coding process for this report, see Methodology<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, most countries in the world continued to have low to moderate levels of religious restrictions. Looking separately at the global median scores on the Government Restrictions Index (a 10-point scale based on 20 indicators of government restrictions on religion) and the Social Hostilities Index (a 10-point scale based on 13 measures of social hostilities involving religion) offers a mixed picture of how religious restrictions are changing. In 2016, the global median score on the Government Restrictions Index ticked upward, from 2.7 to 2.8, while the median score on the Social Hostilities Index fell slightly, from 2.0 to 1.8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many countries, restrictions on religion resulted from actions taken by government officials, social groups or individuals espousing nationalist positions. Typically, these nationalist groups or individuals were seeking to curtail immigration of religious and ethnic minorities, or were calling for efforts to suppress or even eliminate a particular religious group, in the name of defending a dominant ethnic or religious group they described as threatened or under attack. In the Netherlands, for instance, Geert Wilders\u2019 Freedom Party announced an election platform in 2016 that called for the \u201cde-Islamization\u201d of the country, including barring asylum seekers from Islamic countries, prohibiting Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public, closing all mosques and banning the Quran.[2. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cNetherlands<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.] In another case, the Czech group Block Against Islam (which opposes allowing Muslim refugees into the country and calls for restrictions on the Muslim community) organized about 20 anti-Islam rallies around the country during the year.[3. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cCzech Republic<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n More broadly, 2016 saw an uptick in nationalist activities around the globe that are reflected in elements of both the Government Restrictions Index (GRI) and the Social Hostilities Index (SHI).[4. The political parties and groups identified as \u201cnationalist\u201d in this report were either explicitly described in sources as being nationalist, or espoused anti-immigrant or anti-minority views that result in their classification as nationalist. For more about the sources used, see Methodology<\/a>. This report does not claim to be a comprehensive analysis of all nationalist activity in all countries. Rather, it focuses on interactions between nationalist groups and religious <\/em>groups. It may not capture the activities of nationalist groups that targeted ethnic or racial minorities if those nationalist groups did not also target religious minorities during the period under examination (2015 and 2016).\nGenerally, nationalist groups place their perceived national interests above all else, including international norms and the interests of other countries. Since the \u201cnation\u201d often is conceived not just as a geographic political entity (a country) but also as inherited membership in an ethnic, racial or cultural\/historical group of people, nationalist policies typically are aimed at securing the supremacy of some ethnic, racial or cultural\/historic group and disadvantaging others. In European countries where the majority of the population has long been Christian and white, nationalist groups often equate the \u201cnation\u201d with white, native-born Christians, and espouse anti-immigrant and anti-minority policies as defending the national interest. However, nationalist groups are not necessarily anti-immigrant or anti-minority; some nationalists may view immigration or diversity as beneficial to their nation. For more, see Light, Ivan. 1996. \u201cNationalism and Anti-Immigrant Movements<\/a>.\u201d Social Science and Modern Society.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government actors \u2013 whether political parties or individual public officials \u2013 at times used nationalist, and often anti-immigrant or anti-minority, rhetoric to target religious groups in their countries in 2016. About one-in-ten (11%) countries had government actors that used this type of rhetoric.[5. For the purposes of this study, government harassment includes a government offense against a religious group or person due to their religious identity, including physical coercion or being singled out with the intent of making life or religious practice more difficult. Policies that specifically have an adverse effect on particular religious groups, or negative public comments or characterizations about religious groups by the government or government officials, also constitute harassment. For more details on how the analysis in this report is conducted, see Methodology<\/a>.] This marks an uptick from 2015, when 6% of cases involved political parties or officials that espoused nationalist views.[6. In light of gains by nationalist political parties in public opinion polls and elections \u2013 as well as heightened activities by nationalist social groups \u2013 Pew Research Center began coding for actions by these types of groups in 2015. The analysis in this report reflects that new coding effort and allows for a limited but meaningful comparison of nationalist activity in 2015 and 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n This phenomenon was especially common in Europe. About a third of European countries (33%) had nationalist parties that made political statements against religious minorities, an increase from 20% of countries in 2015.[7. This does not necessarily mean these are all new parties in these countries, but rather that any potential harassment by them in 2015 was not reported in the wide variety of sources that are examined for each country. For more details on how the analysis in this report is conducted, see Methodology<\/a>.] In France, for example, Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, promised to continue the ban on religious clothing and symbols in public places specifically to \u201cfight the advance of political Islam.\u201d[8. Bremner, Charles. Oct. 17, 2016. \u201cLe Pen fights back with religious dress ban<\/a>.\u201d The Times.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Asia-Pacific region, nationalist political parties targeting religious groups were found in a smaller share of countries (12%), including Burma (Myanmar), India and New Zealand. For example, Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First Party, said in June 2016 that certain countries \u201ctreat their women like cattle,\u201d and he suggested that all immigrants should be screened for unacceptable attitudes before being permitted to enter the country.[9. Kirk, Stacey. June 5, 2016. \u201cInterview every migrant into NZ, says Winston Peters<\/a>.\u201d Stuff.] Some media reports said he specifically referred to Muslim immigrants, which he denied.[10. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cNew Zealand<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, Muslims were the most common target of harassment by nationalist political parties or officials in 2016, typically in the form of derogatory statements or adverse policies. This was the case in Denmark, where the Danish People\u2019s Party (DPP) backed a measure passed by the city council in Randers that made \u201ctraditional\u201d meals \u2013 including pork products \u2013 mandatory in public institutions, including schools. Martin Henriksen, a spokesperson for the DPP, said the bill would preserve Danish culture and that the party was \u201cfighting against Islamic rules and misguided considerations dictating what Danish children should eat.\u201d The bill was opposed by members of the Muslim community because they saw it as stigmatizing; Muslims traditionally do not eat pork.[11. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cDenmark<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the United States, Muslims were the targets of derogatory rhetoric and proposed discrimination. In July, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump criticized the parents of a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq, saying the soldier\u2019s mother was not \u201callowed\u201d to speak at the Democratic National Convention, despite being on stage with her husband, implying that this was a result of her religion.[12. Haberman, Maggie, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. July 30, 2016. \u201cDonald Trump Criticizes Muslim Family of Slain U.S. Soldier, Drawing Ire<\/a>.\u201d The New York Times.] Later in the year, President-elect Trump appeared to stand by plans for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the United States and a proposed requirement that U.S. Muslims register in a database.[13. Phillip, Abby, and Abigail Hauslohner. Dec. 22, 2016. \u201cTrump on the future of proposed Muslim ban, registry: \u2018You know my plans\u2019<\/a>.\u201d The Washington Post.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationalist parties also singled out Jews, Christians and members of other minority faiths. In Bulgaria, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses reported an ongoing campaign against their religion by two nationalist parties, the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, which together form the Patriotic Front political alliance in the country\u2019s legislature.[14. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cBulgaria<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.] And, in Sweden, representatives of the Sweden Democrats Party made anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim remarks on multiple occasions during the year.[15. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cSweden<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationalist ideologies were not limited to governments. The number of countries where nongovernmental nationalist organizations (as opposed to governmental actors, such as officeholders or political parties with a role in government) targeted religious groups also increased in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the 13 measures that comprise the Social Hostilities Index is whether any organized group or groups \u201csought to dominate public life with their perspective on religion\u201d at the expense of other religious groups. Like the other SHI measures, the answer to this question has been coded annually for each country, based on the same set of publicly available sources (for more details, see the Methodology<\/a> and SHI Question 7 in Appendix D<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016, the study found 77 countries where organized groups sought to dominate public life at the expense of certain religions, up from 72 countries in 2015. Not all of these groups were nationalist or espoused positions against immigrants and religious minorities, but the number of groups that did espouse these positions also rose, from 27 countries in 2015 to 32 in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The majority of social groups displaying this kind of nationalist or anti-immigrant and anti-minority activity \u2013 25 out of the 32 \u2013 were in European countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland and Hungary. A few additional countries with these types of groups were in the Asia-Pacific region, including Sri Lanka, India and Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Australia, for example, nationalist groups and local residents opposed the building of a mosque in southeast Melbourne; eventually a local council denied approval for its construction. Additionally, in May and July 2016, police made arrests in Melbourne after violence broke out between religious freedom advocates and opponents of Islam at competing protests.[16. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cAustralia<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n This type of activity was common among countries in this category: Religious minorities were often the targets of demonstrations, derogatory public comments or violent acts by nationalist groups. In all 32 countries where nationalist groups sought to dominate public life in 2016, they targeted religious minorities, such as Muslims, Jews, minority Christian churches or members of other faiths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In European countries, Muslims were targeted most frequently. Muslims were the focus of nationalist groups in 20 of the 25 European countries where these types of groups were active. Following the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016, for example, the Spanish nationalist group Madrid Social Home hung signs near a major mosque in Madrid reading \u201cToday Brussels, tomorrow Madrid?\u201d and posted \u201cMosques out of Europe\u201d on Twitter.[17. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cSpain<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016. See also Saez, Santiago. May 31, 2017. \u201cSpain proves sterile ground for far-right parties<\/a>.\u201d Deutsche Welle.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n But while Muslims were the primary target of nationalist movements across the globe, Jews, Christians (including Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses) and others were targeted as well. For example, in 2016 nationalist groups aimed activities against religious groups in three countries in the Americas \u2013 Brazil, Peru and the United States \u2013 and Jews were a target in all three; in addition, Muslims also were targeted in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neo-Nazis continued to use anti-Semitic language and engage in online harassment of Jewish journalists in the U.S.[18. Anti-Defamation League. Oct. 19, 2016. \u201cADL Task Force Issues Report Detailing Widespread Anti-Semitic Harassment of Journalists on Twitter During 2016 Campaign<\/a>.\u201d] And the Andean National Socialist Movement of Peru continued to deny that the Holocaust occurred, sell anti-Semitic literature and DVDs, and call for the expulsion of the Jewish community from Peru.[19. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cPeru<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationalism was certainly not a novel ideology in 2016; nationalist political parties and organizations have been active around the world for centuries. But some nationalist political parties did gain more support in various ways in 2016. In addition to Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s election in the Philippines, support in the polls for Marine Le Pen of the National Front party increased leading up to the 2017 French presidential election (which Le Pen ultimately lost in a runoff to Emmanuel Macron). And the Alternative for Germany party, a German far-right nationalist party, some branches of which have called for a ban on the construction and operation of mosques, won a significant number of seats in three state parliament elections in 2016 (before gaining seats in the national parliament in 2017).[20. Sept. 23, 2016. \u201cFrench far-right leader Marine Le Pen would make second round of presidential vote, poll finds<\/a>.\u201d France 24. See also U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cGermany<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016. See also March 13, 2016. \u201cGerman state elections: Success for right-wing AfD, losses for Merkel\u2019s CDU<\/a>.\u201d Deutsche Welle.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationalist organizations in society at large were also not a new phenomenon in most of the countries where they were active in 2016, but some spread their operations to new locales during the year. For instance, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West established an Irish branch in 2016 \u2013 a move that was met with protests by groups describing themselves as opposing racism and supporting immigrants.[21. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cIreland<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.] And a Finland-based group called Soldiers of Odin spread in 2016 to multiple cities in Finland and some neighboring countries, including Estonia, organizing marches against \u201cIslamist intruders\u201d and vowing to set up volunteer street patrols to counter crime by migrants.[22. Laizans, Janis and Joachim Dagenborg. \u201cAnti-immigrant \u2018Soldiers of Odin\u2019 expand from Finland to Nordics, Baltics<\/a>.\u201d Reuters. See also U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cFinland<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n In India, some Hindu nationalists formed \u201ccow protection\u201d groups that viewed cow slaughter and eating beef as an affront to Hindu deities that represent motherhood. These groups have existed in prior years in India, but they increased their activities in 2016. Members of these groups violently confronted consumers of beef or those they believed may have been involved in slaughtering beef, in many instances harassing and in some cases beating or killing their targets.[23. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cIndia<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016. See also Gowen, Annie. \u201cIndia\u2019s prime minister breaks silence on Hindu cow protectors, calling them \u2018fake\u2019<\/a>.\u201d The Washington Post.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the ninth in a series of reports by Pew Research Center analyzing the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices. The studies are part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. The project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To measure global restrictions on religion in 2016 \u2013 the most recent year for which data are available \u2013 the study ranks 198 countries and territories by their levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion. The new study is based on the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To track these indicators of government restrictions and social hostilities, researchers combed through more than a dozen publicly available, widely cited sources of information, including the U.S. State Department\u2019s annual reports on international religious freedom and annual reports from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as reports from a variety of European and UN bodies and several independent, nongovernmental organizations. (See Methodology<\/a> for more details on sources used in the study.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Middle East-North Africa region continued to have the highest median level of government restrictions on religion in 2016, although the Americas had the sharpest increase<\/em> in its median score, rising from 1.7 in 2015 to 2.2 in 2016. The rise in the Americas\u2019 median score was partly due to incidents in which worship or proselytizing were restricted. For example, in Paraguay, police forcibly evicted the Ava Guarani indigenous community from their ancestral lands, demolishing homes, schools and places of worship.[24. U.S. Department of State. March 3, 2017. \u201cParaguay<\/a>.\u201d 2016 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.] And in Mexico, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses were prohibited from proselytizing by the municipal authority in San Jorge Nuchita.[25. U.S. Department of State. Aug. 15, 2017. \u201cMexico<\/a>.\u201d International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Europe and the Americas were the only regions to experience increases in median levels of social hostilities involving religion, with Europe seeing the sharpest increase. The Middle East-North Africa region continued to experience a decline in its median score, although it remained the region with the highest levels of social hostilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Number](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/06\/PF.06.21.18_religious.restrictions-00-00-.png?w=636\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nNationalist political parties aim rhetoric at religious groups<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Muslims](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/06\/PF.06.21.18_religious.restrictions-00-01-.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nNationalist organizations targeted religious minorities as well<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Religious](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/06\/PF.06.21.18_religious.restrictions-00-02-.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nNationalist groups and parties gain standing in 2016<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>About this report<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Religious restrictions vary by region, religious group<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Government](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/06\/PF.06.21.18_religious.restrictions-00-03-.png?w=309\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"Social](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/06\/PF.06.21.18_religious.restrictions-00-04-.png?w=309\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n