Majorities reject banning defamation of religion: 20 nation poll
As the UN General Assembly prepares to debate a proposal calling for nations to take action against the defamation of religion, majorities in 13 of 20 nations polled around the world support the right to criticize a religion.
On average, across all countries polled, 57% of respondents agree that “people should be allowed to publicly criticize a religion because people should have freedom of speech.” However, an average of 34% of respondents agree that governments “should have the right to fine or imprison people who publicly criticize a religion because such criticism could defame the religion.”
WorldPublicOpinion.org conducted the poll of 18,487 respondents in 20 nations. This includes many of the largest nations — India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia — as well as Mexico, Chile, Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland, Ukraine, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, and South Korea. Polling was also conducted in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The margins of error range from +/-3 to 4 percentage points. The surveys were conducted across the different nations between April 25 and July 9, 2009.
Support for the right to criticize religion is strongest in the United States, with 89%, compared to just 9% support for government restrictions. Though the strongest supporters of restrictions on criticism of religions are in Muslim countries, a separate poll by WPO in 2008 showed that overwhelming majorities said it is at least somewhat important for people to have the right to express any opinion, including criticism of the government or religious leaders. In fact, clear majorities in every one of the 20 nations included in that poll took the same position, ranging from 69% in India to 98% in the United States.
The two non-Muslim countries where majorities responded to the recent WPO poll by saying governments should be able to fine or imprison people for criticizing religions are India and Nigeria. This suggests that their support of government restrictions may stem not from a popular push to defend Islam — Muslims make up roughly half of Nigeria’s population but just 13% of India’s — but from a broadly shared desire to reduce incidents of inter-religious violence.
Source: Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland
New study estimates global muslim population at 1.57 billion
Nearly a Quarter of World Population is Muslim
A new, comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion. Released today by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Mapping the Global Muslim Population offers the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population, including sectarian identity.
Key findings include:
– While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa.
– The Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. More than half of the 20 countries and territories in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.
– More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
– Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
Previously published estimates of the size of the global Muslim population have ranged widely, from 1 billion to 1.8 billion. The new study is based on the best available data for 232 countries and territories. Pew Forum researchers, in consultation with nearly 50 demographers and social scientists at universities and research centers around the world, analyzed about 1,500 sources, including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, to arrive at these figures — the largest project of its kind to date.
The report includes an executive summary, maps and charts illustrating Muslims’ geographic distribution, explanations of the study’s methodologies and a list of data sources by country. The report is available online (http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=450).
These findings on the world Muslim population lay the foundation for a forthcoming study by the Pew Forum, scheduled to be released in 2010, that will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and project Muslim populations into the future. The Pew Forum plans to undertake similar demographic studies of the major global religions in the future.
The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life delivers timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Pew Forum is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organization and does not take positions on policy debates. Based in Washington, D.C., the Pew Forum is a project of the Pew Research Center, which is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Source: Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life