{"id":8649,"date":"2022-01-25T10:59:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T15:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/four-in-ten-countries-and-territories-worldwide-had-blasphemy-laws-in-2019-2\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T23:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T03:56:12","slug":"four-in-ten-countries-and-territories-worldwide-had-blasphemy-laws-in-2019-2","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2022\/01\/25\/four-in-ten-countries-and-territories-worldwide-had-blasphemy-laws-in-2019-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-in-ten countries and territories worldwide had blasphemy laws in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apostasy and blasphemy may seem to many like artifacts of history. But in scores of countries around the world, laws against apostasy and blasphemy remain on the books \u2013 and many are enforced to various degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy, which is defined as speech or actions considered to be contemptuous of God or of people or objects considered sacred. Twenty-two countries (11%) had laws against apostasy, the act of abandoning one\u2019s faith. The analysis draws on the Center\u2019s wider body of research on global restrictions<\/a> related to religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These laws were most common in the Middle East and North Africa, where 18 of the 20 countries (90%) in the region have laws criminalizing blasphemy and 13 of them (65%) outlaw apostasy. In Saudi Arabia, an Indian national<\/a> was charged with blasphemy in 2019, fined, and sentenced to 10 years in prison for tweeting criticism of Muhammad and Allah, as well as of the Saudi government.<\/p>\n\n\n

How we did this<\/div>