Putrajaya imposes ‘very high’ restrictions on religion, global study finds
(TMI) – Putrajaya’s restrictions on religion are among the worst in the world, revealed a study by American think tank Pew Research Centre.
The report, Restrictions on Religion, which covered 198 countries, found that Malaysia is among the 24 nations with “very high” government restrictions on religion.
It also found that the number of countries with “high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year-peak in 2012”.“A third (33%) of the 198 countries and territories included in the study had high religious hostilities in 2012, up from 29% in 2011 and 20% as of mid-2007,” said the report.
Placing Malaysia on par with countries like Egypt, Syria, Somalia, Russia, Sudan and Iraq, the report measured “government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices” for its Government Restrictions Index (GRI).
The report, which covered more than 99.5% of the world’s population, had looked at “efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversions, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups”.
Countries were divided into groups ranging from “very high”, “high”, “moderate” to “low” according to scores. In the Social Hostilities Index (SHI), Malaysia is placed in the “high” group, along with 44 other countries that included Iran, Kuwait, France and Italy.
The SHI measured “religious hostility by private individuals, organisations or groups in society” including “religion-related armed conflict or terrorism, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons or other religion-related intimidation or abuse”.
Pew Research’s study only covered events that occurred till the end of 2012 and so omitted the recent clampdown on Christians pertaining to the use of the word Allah in churches and Bahasa Malaysia bibles.
