(Crux) ROME – A papal charity says that at least two thirds of the world’s population live in countries where religious freedom is not upheld, and the most persecuted religious group are Christians.
The 2021 Religious Freedom Report by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) found that around 5.2 billion people live in countries where there are grave violations to religious freedom, including three of the world’s most populous countries: China, India and Pakistan. In most of these countries, religious minorities are the most targeted, and in recent years, the faith-based persecution by authoritarian governments has intensified.
The report also highlights and denounces the increase of sexual violence used as a weapon against religious minorities – crimes against women and girls who are abducted, raped and forced to convert to another religion.
The promotion of ethnic and religious supremacy in some Hindu and Buddhist majority countries in Asia has led to further oppression of minorities, often reducing their members to de facto second-class citizenship. According to the report, India is the most extreme example, but similar policies apply in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and others.
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the international president ACN defended the importance of religious freedom as an inherent aspect of human dignity, insisting that “it cannot be trampled upon for any reason, neither by any government, nor by any political policy or any particular agenda.”
