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III. General trends and specific manifestations of
religious intolerance
16. From 2007 to 2015, roughly one quarter of countries around the globe were
affected by significant and unlawful limits on freedom of religion or belief and/or
experienced high or very high levels of social hostility involving religion or belief.
Today, three quarters of the world’s population live in countries that have either
restrictions on the right to religion or belief or a high level of social hostility
involving religion or belief. Global restrictions on freedom of religion or belief
increased in 2015 after a two-year downward trend. Overall, in 2015, nearly 60 per
cent of countries experienced increases in government restrictions and social
hostilities involving religion or belief (see figure I). 4
Figure I
Number of countries and territories experiencing social hostility and government restrictions
involving religion or belief
Social hostility
Restrictions
70
56
56
57
55
51
50
47
47
43
42
40
65
57
28
53
47
39
36
35
2008
2009
53
45
14
0
2007
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Source: Pew Research Center.
17. The available data imply a positive correlation between restrictions on
freedom of religion and levels of religious intolerance. The Special Rapporteur
notes that while other variables may give rise to upsurges in religious intolerance,
increases in unlawful government restrictions against religious groups rem ain one of
the primary and most fundamental factors in the increasing levels of religious
intolerance in any given society.
18. Other factors and phenomena accounting for increases in religious intolerance
include globalization, which has precipitated pluralism even in societies that have
remained isolated for centuries, and growing migration, which has increasingly
brought different religious communities into much closer contact. Reportedly,
nearly 9 million Christians, about 6 million Muslims and some 3 million Hindus,
Buddhists, Jews, adherents of folk religions and individuals who hold no religious
affiliation are estimated to have migrated to a new region between 2010 and 2015. 6
19. State and non-State reactions to the phenomenon of globalization have
rendered many societies more vulnerable to tribalism, xenophobia and nativism as
__________________
6
17-14822
Pew Research Center, “The future of world religions: population growth projections, 2010 -2050”
(Washington, D.C., April 2015).
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