Middle East & North Africa

In 2014, the median level of religious hostilities in the Middle East and North Africa reached a level four times that of the global median.

Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey had some of the highest levels of religious restrictions in 2014.

Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.1 Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restrictions in […]

Government restrictions on religion and social hostilities related to religion decreased somewhat between 2013 and 2014, the second consecutive year of such declines.

But the U.S. and Europe are quite different when it comes to their migrant populations’ origin countries.

The UK has the fifth-largest immigrant population in the world, at 8.5 million.

An estimated 12.5 million Syrians are now displaced, an unprecedented number in recent history for a single country.

In 2020, census questionnaires may for the first time be offered in Arabic, now the fastest-growing language in the U.S. But the Census Bureau faces a challenge not only in translating the language but also in adjusting the appearance of the questionnaire for those accustomed to reading and writing Arabic script.

Israel has been a Jewish-majority country since its founding in 1948, and its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities – including some groups within the Jewish community – has persisted as a hotly debated topic throughout the nation’s history.

Far more Americans continue to sympathize more with Israel (54%) than with the Palestinians (19%) in the Middle East dispute, according to our recent foreign policy survey. And half of Americans (50%) think a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully, while 42% say this is not possible. […]