41 countries ban religion-related groups; Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’is among the most commonly targeted
Around a fifth (21%) of the 198 countries evaluated banned at least one religion-related group in 2019, our analysis found.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Around a fifth (21%) of the 198 countries evaluated banned at least one religion-related group in 2019, our analysis found.
79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy.
Globally, Muslims live in the biggest households, followed by Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated.
The global Muslim population is more concentrated in Islam’s main population centers than the global Christian population is for Christianity.
Muslim societies have gained a reputation in recent decades for failing to adequately educate women. But a new analysis of Pew Research Center data on educational attainment and religion suggests that economics, not religion, is the key factor limiting the education of Muslim women.
While many, especially in the U.S., may associate Islam with the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region.
A total of 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the U.S. in fiscal year 2016, making up almost half (46%) of the nearly 85,000 refugees who entered the country in that period.
Support for al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that Osama bin Laden founded, was low among the Muslim publics surveyed in 2010, and remained low in 2013, two years after bin Laden’s ignominious end.
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