The '2023 Report on Religious Freedom in the World', presented by the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), raises a new and very serious alarm about religious freedom in the world where, in one country out of three, it is not respected.
According to the data emerging from the Acn Report, among the 61 nations where, in practice, there is still no total right to follow one's private faith, 49 are those where it is the government that persecutes its citizens for religious reasons, with little or no consideration on the part of the international community.
As the director of ACN-Italy, Alessandro Monteduro, explains, "persecution has worsened, and the impunity of the persecutors is more widespread". Specifically, looking at the data, it can be seen that the situation has worsened in 47 countries, and has only improved in nine of those surveyed.
The '2023 Report on Religious Freedom in the World', presented by the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), raises a new and very serious alarm about religious freedom in the world where, in one country out of three, it is not respected.
According to the data in the Acn Report, among the 61 nations where, in practice, there is still no total right to follow one's private faith, 49 are those where it is the government that persecutes its citizens for religious reasons, with little or no consideration from the international community.
As the director of ACN-Italy, Alessandro Monteduro, explains, "persecution has worsened, and the impunity of persecutors is more widespread". Specifically, looking at the data, one can see that the situation has worsened in 47 countries, and has only improved in nine of those surveyed.
A problem that also exists in Europe. Citing incidents in Finland, Canada and the United Kingdom as examples, the report also denounces the growing limits on freedom of thought, conscience and religion in the countries belonging to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The West has moved from a climate of polite persecution to a widespread culture of annihilation.
The director of ACN also explains the danger in the world for minority religious communities, since 'they are at risk of extinction due to a combination of terrorist actions, attacks on cultural heritage and more subtle measures such as the proliferation of anti-conversion laws, the manipulation of electoral rules and financial restrictions. However, there are also cases of persecuted majority religious communities, as in Nicaragua and Nigeria'.
One of the countries with the greatest risk to religious freedom, not counting Africa, China and North Korea, is India, according to the ACN report, a country where levels of persecution are rapidly increasing. Episodes of forced religious conversions, kidnappings and sexual violence remain largely unpunished and ignored by the police and local judicial authorities even in Pakistan, where young Christian and Hindu women are often kidnapped and subjected to forced marriages.