Four-in-ten countries and territories worldwide had blasphemy laws in 2019
79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy.
In 2020, properties in 102 of the 198 countries and territories in the study were targeted in incidents tied to religion.
Our study analyzes 198 countries and territories and is based on policies and events in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available.
Around a fifth (21%) of the 198 countries evaluated banned at least one religion-related group in 2019, our analysis found.
Women make up at least 40% of the workforce in more than 80 countries. Across all of these countries, the median female share of the workforce is 45.4%.
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 Pew Research Center spring 2015 survey found that Pakistanis were extremely critical of these terrorist organizations and supported government action to fight extremists.
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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