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As of 2012, at least 17 nations have police that enforce religious norms. Religion police forces are most common in the Middle East and North Africa, and are also found in the Asia-Pacific and in sub-Saharan Africa.
A third of the 198 countries studied had a high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion in 2012. About three-in-ten countries had a high or very high level of government restrictions on religion, roughly the same as in 2011.
Much of the public debate over the so-called “Charter of Values” has focused on the measure’s potential impact on immigrants and their religious beliefs and practices.
Pew Research’s fourth major report on global restrictions on religion finds that the share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religion rose from 37% in 2010 to 40% in 2011. The Middle East and North Africa continued to have the highest levels of restrictions in the year when much of the Arab Spring uprisings occurred, with social hostilities involving religion increasing markedly and government restrictions remaining high.
Senior Researcher Brian J. Grim talks about the Pew Research Center’s restrictions on religion studies at the April 2013 TEDx ViaDellaConciliazione conference at the Vatican. https://www.youtube.com/embed/cQvDUTOOkiI Related Resources: Slides Arab Spring Adds to Global Restrictions on Religion TEDx ViaDellaConciliazione website TEDxViaDellaConciliazione Youtube page
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