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The National Media Regulatory Authority may suspend broadcast stations, religious or secular, for broadcasting hate speech or calls for ethnic violence but not because of their religious affiliation.
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Democratic Republic of the Report on International Religious Freedom - Congo. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO INTERNATIONAL The constitution provides for freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination Most religious groups are found throughout the country and are widely represented in cities.
Various religious groups have their own radio stations. Private radio stations in both Kinshasa and other major urban areas in the DRC and nearby Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, broadcast programs heard in Kinshasa representing several Christian groups. A statutory order on the Regulation of Nonprofit Associations and Public Utilities provides for and regulates the establishment and operation of religious institutions. Requirements for the establishment of a religious organization are simple.
The government grants tax-exempt status to recognized religious organizations. A law regulating religious organizations grants civil servants the power to recognize, suspend recognition of, or dissolve religious groups. Although the law requires officially recognized religious associations to maintain nonprofit status and respect the general public order, they can establish places of worship and train clergy. A decree allows nonprofit organizations, including religious organizations, to operate without restriction provided they registered with the government by submitting a copy of their bylaws and constitution.
The government requires religious groups to register; however, in practice unregistered religious groups operated unhindered. The government requires foreign religious groups to obtain the approval of the president through the minister of justice; such groups generally operated without restriction once they received approval. Religious groups operated many public schools; the government allowed the groups to provide religious instruction.
According to Zenit and Fides news agencies, on November 8, near Goma, North Kivu, two men in military uniforms stopped and killed a priest after taking money from the priest's traveling companion. The men had previously stopped others asking if they were priests. After stopping the victim and his companion, they asked which of the two men was the priest and then shot him, leaving the other man unharmed.
The incident was believed to be a targeted killing. According to The Ottawa Citizen , two soldiers were arrested on suspicion of killing the priest. On December 13 another priest was wounded and his wife killed in a targeted killing by unknown armed gunmen. The priest was in a coma after the attack in his home in Goma, North Kivu. In April police arrested three Mormons in Kinshasa and detained additional supporters who protested the initial arrests. Political involvement by the church leader was cited as a possible reason for the arrests. All individuals were released three and a half months later, with no conviction or trial.
Although the government committed to a judicial investigation, there was no investigation into the police crackdown on the BDK in Bas-Congo, where police reportedly killed at least BDK adherents and razed BDK houses and temples.
The government did not take any further action in prosecuting those responsible for the attacks. The organization changed its name to Bundu dia Mayala and was pursuing political party recognition while quietly continuing its religious practices. There continued to be credible reports that families abandoned or abused persons, including children, accused of witchcraft.
As in past reporting periods, there were reports of individuals attacked, tortured, killed, or driven from their homes, accused of being witches. While "witch" is an imprecise term that is often applied to persons with developmental, behavioral, and psychological problems, there was a common belief that some persons have the power to cast spells on others or were possessed by demons.
Persecution of these individuals is common following a death that family members attribute to the work of a witch. Accusations of witchcraft can cause widespread fear in a community. Religion Family Trees Family trees diagram the rich history of major world religions and American denominations. QuickLists Using the best available data, the following lists provide data on American and international religion in rank order.
Congregations Browse dozens of topics from a major national survey of religious congregations. See how the responses vary by the size, religious family and region of the congregation.
Surveys Browse dozens of topics covered by major national surveys. See how the responses vary by demographic categories and, when available, how they change over time. Religious Minorities Through the aid of text, pictures, and graphics, explore the history of non-Christian religious minorities in the United States. International Maps World and regional maps for measures of religious adherence, socio-economics, and religion and state relations. Government Religious Preference GRP measures government-level favoritism toward, and disfavor against, 30 religious denominations.
A series of ordered categorical variables index the state's institutional favoritism in 28 different ways. The variables are combined to form five composite indices for five broad components of state-religion: The five components' composites in turn are further combined into a single composite score, the GRP score. The RCS Data Project would like to acknowledge, recognize, and express our deepest gratitude for the significant contributions of Todd M. Johnson the principal investigator of the World Christian Database and the co-principal investigator of the World Religion Database.
In , France passed a law banning the use of "conspicuous" religious symbols in public schools, including the hijab. Syntax Repository Download syntax files and recreate popular religious schemes in survey data. Teachers are educated at public universities, in departments that are nevertheless affiliated with a specific church Protestant or Catholic or with confessional Islam. Freedom of religious belief and worship shall be guaranteed by the State on the condition that such freedom does not affect other religious beliefs or violate public order and security. The government reviews the curriculum of religious schools to ensure that they offer the full standard academic curriculum.
Demographics reports the estimates of religious demographics, both country by country and region by region. The RCS was created to fulfill the unmet need for a dataset on the religious dimensions of countries of the world, with the state-year as the unit of observation. It estimates populations and percentages of adherents of religious denominations including second level subdivision within Christianity and Islam. Its goal is to create a set of measures that systematically gauge the intersection between government and religion.
Specifically, it examines government religion policy. Round 3 of the RAS dataset measures the extent of government involvement in religion GIR or the lack thereof for states on a yearly basis between and This constitutes all countries with populations of , or more as well as a sampling of smaller states. This dataset, featuring this and other international measures highlighted on the country pages, may be previewed and downloaded here.