THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT REPORT 2018 Key Countries Edition A Global report on the rights, legal status and discrimination against humanists, atheists and the non-religious THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT REPORT 2018 Key Countries Edition Freedom of Thought 2018: A Global Report on the Rights, Legal Status and Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists and the Non-religious, was created by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). The International Humanist and Ethical Union is the global representative body of the humanist movement, uniting a diversity of non-religious organisations and individuals. Its mission is to represent and support the global Humanist movement, and to build a world in which human rights are respected and all can live a life of dignity. If you have updates, additions or corrections for the report please email [email protected] or visit the website at freethoughtreport.com. To receive updates and news from IHEU, or join as a supporter, visit iheu.org. Constitution & Government Education & Children’s Rights These maps depict the findings of the full Freedom of Thought Report which is available in a complete Online Edition at freethoughtreport.com. The maps correspond to each of the four thematic strands of the Report: Constitution & Government, Education & Children’s Rights, Society & Community, and Freedom of Expression & Advocacy of Humanist Values. Each map shows the highest severity level (see key, right) of any boundary condition applied in each thematic strand. 6 Freedom of Thought 2018 | Maps Society & Community Expression & Advocacy of Humanist Values Grave Violations Severe Discrimination Systemic Discrimination Mostly Satisfactory Free and Equal No Rating Maps | Freedom of Thought 2018 7 This map depicts the findings of the full Freedom of Thought Report Grave Violations which is available in a complete Online Edition at freethoughtreport.com. Severe Discrimination This map shows as a colour gradient the “summary score” for each Systemic Discrimination country (the average of the worst severity level (see key, right) of any boundary condition applied in each thematic strand. Mostly Satisfactory Free and Equal No Rating 8 Freedom of Thought 2018 | | Freedom of Thought 2018 9 Preface to the 2018 edition By Andrew Copson One of the underlying messages of this report, a fact which flows from its findings, is that there are billions of people living in countries with compromised freedom of thought, expression and association. In particular, it shows that even on the most conservative estimates, there are untold millions of de facto humanists, atheists and otherwise religiously unaffiliated people living in countries where they face discrimination or outright persecution, both in society and at the hands of the state. In the most extreme cases, the non-religious are told that to espouse atheistic thought is an act of terrorism; that to promote humanist values (such as reason, open mindedness, human rights, equality, social tolerance) is a kind of criminal Andrew Copson is president of attack on culture; that to leave the religion presumed of them at birth is a moral the International Humanist and crime worthy of death; that they cannot marry who they choose or unless they Ethical Union (IHEU) pay lip-service to a sanctioned religion; that their children could be taken away because of their ‘apostasy’; that simply to question the culture which surrounds them may be construed as ‘blasphemy’ and they could be locked up or executed for it. Even in countries with less severe discrimination, the non-religious face uphill battles against religious privilege and inequalities which are sometimes subtle, sometimes abundantly clear. Humanists may hold strong convictions about the world, about the right way to live or at least how they want to live, about human nature, knowledge, love and freedom. These philosophical convictions may be no less serious, no less meaningful, no less inseparable from the person and their human dignity, than religious convictions can be. Of course, not all humanists or non-religious people generally hold particularly well-formed convictions, or identify closely with these terms (in the same way that many nominally religious people are actually non- practicing, or perhaps don’t care to think all that deeply or all that often about big questions or underlying beliefs). And your own level of interest is irrelevant. All of us — humanist, freethinker or disinterested; religious, spiritual or apathetic — we all share the exact same rights to freedom of thought, expression, association, love, life and happiness. Yet that basic equality in the human condition still eludes many lawmakers and is denied to millions of people. This year is the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For seven decades now the world has known international human rights law which recognises the need to treat people with equality and respect, and which explicitly upholds not only freedom of religion, but freedom of thought and belief more generally, and under this framework we can assert with authority that the human right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief “applies to theistic, non-theistic, and atheistic beliefs”1 just as it does to religious beliefs and political convictions. 1 http://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb22.html ; https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/freedomreligion/pages/istandardsi1.aspx 10 Freedom of Thought 2018 | Preface We hope that this Report contributes to the recognition of injustices perpetrated against humanists and the non-religious around the world. We hope it shines a light on the discrimination and persecution that is often inherent in the law. We hope that lawmakers will be moved to reform. We hope also that humanists, and non-religious people generally, especially those who suffer most under a blanket of denial and taboo and accusation, will know that there are others who care, who understand, who recognize their marginalization and persecution, and who want to see them free to be and express who they are. Foreword | Freedom of Thought 2018 11 Editorial Introduction By Bob Churchill New ranking index This year, for the first time, the Freedom of Thought Report provides a ranking index. The new index for 2018 allows greater clarity of the comparative performance of different countries according to our rating system. The ranking index is an extension of the existing ratings system. Under this ratings system, a series of boundary conditions (descriptions of various possible situations) are applied to a country when they are found to be true based on the narrative report for that country. The boundary conditions are classed at various levels of “severity” depending on the seriousness of the situation they describe. Bob Churchill is Director of Under the new ranking system, countries accumulate a base score according to Communications at the IHEU, and how many boundary conditions are applied and how severe they are. The higher Editor of the Freedom of Thought a country’s base score, the worse that country has performed, and the higher its Report position in the ranking index will be. Worst-performing countries The ten worst-performing countries are: Country Base Score Ranking out of 196 Brunei Darussalam 876 187 Sudan 880 188 Malaysia 923 189 Mauritania 940 190 United Arab Emirates 1060 191 Pakistan 1076 192 Maldives 1094 193 Afghanistan 1100 194 Iran 1287 195 Saudi Arabia 1358 196 As has been noted in some previous editions of the Report, one of the obvious similarities between these worst-performing countries is that they are in various ways states with legal codes drawing on Islamic law. Note that this is not to say that countries with majority Muslim populations are always among the worst- 2 https://freethoughtreport.com/ratings-system/ 3 The ranking index assigns a numerical value to each severity level; the higher the severity, the higher the number. Each country’s base score is equal to the product of the number of boundary conditions at each severity level and the value assigned to that severity level. The scores are then ranked consecutively to form the ranking index. Countries with a base score of zero are those which we found to have no measurable or systemic discrimination against the non-religious (they only have “all-clear” boundary conditions applied to them) and therefore share rank 1 in the ranking index. 12 Freedom of Thought 2018 | Foreword performing countries. There are states with predominantly Muslim populations such as Burkina Faso and Senegal which perform relatively well according to our criteria (in those two countries in particular the legal systems inherit more from previous colonisation by secular France than from Islam). What all these worst-performing countries do have in common that is not shared by more liberal or secular-state majority-Muslim countries, is that a conservative vision of Islam is deeply embedded in the legal framework. Of these worst-performing ten countries, we happen to have applied the boundary condition “State legislation is largely or entirely derived from religious law or by religious authorities” in eight out of ten cases, or in the cases of Malaysia and Pakistan we applied “State legislation is partly derived from religious law or by religious authorities”. Both Malaysia and Pakistan are among the countries which have suffered specific apparent anti-atheist and anti-‘blasphemy’ violence in recent years. It is alarming that there have been serious notable degradations in several of these worst-performing countries during the seven years we have produced the Freedom of Thought Report. Saudi Arabia introduced a law under which “the promotion of atheist thought in any form” was classed as terrorism. Sudan has prosecuted numerous apostates. Pakistan saw in 2017 an anti-‘blasphemy’ crackdown against atheists and supposed ‘blasphemers’ on social media, as well as continued mob ‘blasphemy’ violence. Mauritania has this year increased the penalty for ‘apostasy’ and ‘blasphemy’ to death and removed the right of “repentance”.