In October, Stipe Lozina, who punched and stomped on a pregnant Muslim woman in 2019, was sentenced to three years in prison. Media reported that Lozina shouted “anti-Islamic hate speech at the victim and her friends” during the attack.

In January, a household in Victoria State prominently flew a swastika flag for several weeks. Neither the local council nor the police could require the flag’s removal, but a spokesperson for Victoria Police said it had been taken down after discussions with the homeowners, who stated they were not aware the flag could cause offense.

Sources stated that the COVID-19 pandemic enabled conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazi sympathizers, and far-right hate groups to introduce new avenues of attack on religious organizations. In August, during Victoria State’s second wave of COVID-19, a cluster of cases emerged at the Islamic Al-Taqwa College. Principal Omar Hallak told media that references to the “Al-Taqwa cluster” by state leadership, including Premier Daniel Andrews, had instigated online attacks from hate groups.

On July 17, the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network expressed concern to a Senate inquiry into foreign interference that “right-wing extremist rhetoric” was being brought into the country through various social media platforms. The network also stated that there were 12 fringe political parties in the 2019 federal election that ran on platforms that supported “discriminatory anti-Muslim polic[ies.]”

The NSW Attorney General’s Department told the state parliament that it was aware of three instances of swastika flags being flown in the state during the year.

There were reports that anti-Semitic rhetoric increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In one well publicized incident, Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews was targeted with anti-Semitic graffiti reading “Stop Dan Andrews,” with a Star of David replacing the “a” in “Dan” and a swastika replacing the “s” in “Andrews.” The Australian Jewish News reported that anti-Semitic content was posted online that included statements that blamed Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic and called it the “Jew Flu.” Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich warned that COVID-19 was fueling “anti-Semitic and hateful conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the pandemic.”

In June, an NSW man was jailed for 10 months for posting threats against Muslims on social media.

The Anti-Defamation Commission reported a Jewish man and his son were subjected to anti-Semitic verbal abuse in Melbourne in July. The two were standing on a busy road when a man began yelling at them, calling them “Jew dogs.”

In July, the Victoria Department of Education launched an investigation into anti-Semitic bullying at Brighton Secondary College, where two Jewish brothers said they were regularly the subjects of verbal and physical abuse, including taunts of “Heil Hitler” from students, as well as comments from teachers referring to Israel as “Palestine.” The brothers said they made numerous reports to teachers but no serious action had been taken.

In August, a Jewish Uber driver in Melbourne reported that a passenger asked him if he was Jewish. When the driver confirmed his religion, the passenger asked that the car be stopped, since he “did not want a Jew to drive him,” and as the car pulled over, the passenger verbally abused the driver with insults, including “Jewish scumbag.” Uber removed the passenger’s access to the app and the driver filed a complaint with Victoria Police.

On January 24, Islamic scholar Ismail al-Wahwah of the Australian chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir delivered a sermon, later uploaded on YouTube, that denied the Holocaust and called for world domination by Islam.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry reported 331 anti-Semitic incidents involving threats or abuse during the year, compared with 368 the previous year. According to the council, there was an increase in several more serious categories of incidents, including physical assault (eight, compared with four in 2019) and direct verbal abuse, harassment, and intimidation (128, compared with 114 in 2019). Graffiti reports declined to 42, compared with 95 in 2019.

The Community Security Group released a report on anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 in which it stated there were 451 reported incidents throughout the country, a 31 percent increase over the 343 incidents reported in 2018.

In May, vandals sprayed swastikas on a golf course in Melbourne that was originally founded by Jews nearly seven decades ago because they were not allowed to play at other clubs.

The Victoria State Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission received 36 complaints involving religion from July 2019 to June 2020, a 36 percent decrease from the previous year. Of these complaints, half occurred in the provision of goods and services, and just over a third occurred in employment. Complaints relating to employment under the Equal Opportunity Act and Racial Religious Tolerance Act decreased 28 in 2018/19 to 20 in 2019/20.

There were reports of physical violence, vandalism, hate speech, and harassment directed at religious groups, in particular against Jews and Muslims. In December, Statistics Canada released hate crime statistics for 2019 that showed a 7 percent decline in the number of police-reported religiously motivated hate crimes, from 657 in 2018 to 608 in 2019.

In 2019, the most recent year for which there were statistics, the B’nai B’rith Canada League for Human Rights reported 14 cases of anti-Semitic violence, compared with 11 in 2018; there were 182 reports of vandalism, including the painting of swastikas and threatening messages on buildings, and 2,011 reports of harassment, compared with 221 and 1,809, respectively, in 2018. The league received 2,207 reports of anti-Semitic cases in 2019, compared with 2,041 reports of anti-Semitic cases in 2018, and 1,752 cases in 2017. More than 90 percent of the occurrences (2,011) involved harassment. Eighty-three percent of all incidents reported in 2019 occurred online or had an online component; the physical location and identities of those posting the online messages were unknown. Occurrences of in-person, compared to online harassment, nearly doubled between 2018 and 2019, rising from 8.6 percent to 16.8 percent, with 238 recorded incidents of bullying of Jewish students by their peers at primary and secondary schools. In 2019, while overall incidents increased across the country, there were significant reductions in all provinces except for Quebec and Ontario, which have the largest Jewish communities in the country. Ontario experienced the greatest increase (62.8 percent) in incidents between 2018 and 2019, from 481 in 2018 to 783 in 2019. Quebec had the largest total number of incidents for a second consecutive year, rising from 709 in 2018 to 796 (up 12.3 percent) in 2019.

According to media reports, on September 18, police charged a male suspect with first degree murder in the killing of a congregant in the parking lot of the International Muslim Organization of Toronto mosque in Rexdale, a Toronto neighborhood, on September 12. The mosque’s security video captured the attack. In the recording, an intruder approached and slashed the neck of the male victim, who was also the mosque’s volunteer caretaker, as he sat alone outside the entrance of the building controlling access to it to comply with pandemic health regulations. Paramedics pronounced the victim dead at the scene. Media reports linked the male suspect to white supremacist postings online. The chief executive of the National Coalition of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) called for police to file hate crime charges and to take stronger steps to dismantle white supremacist organizations, including the creation of a national strategy to counter extremism and hate. The accused remained in custody. Toronto Police Services said it continued the investigation as of December and did not rule out filing additional hate crime charges.

According to media reports, in October, the NCCM publicized violent messages sent by unidentified persons to a Toronto-area mosque, including a threat, “We have the guns to do a Christchurch all over again,” referring to attacks on two mosques in New Zealand in 2019 in which a gunman killed 52 persons. The NCCM declined to identify the mosque for safety purposes, but police confirmed they had opened an investigation of the messages that remained pending through year’s end. The Prime Minister said the threats were “unacceptable” and that Islamophobia and extremism had no place in the country, and separately tweeted that he was “deeply disturbed” by the messages.

According to media reports, a Quebec man pled guilty in June to one charge of inciting hatred in social media posts in 2019. The posts included hate speech against Muslims and Jews, and promoted Aryan supremacy. The court stayed a second charge of inciting hatred and one charge of advocating genocide, and released the man after five months in custody. The court ordered three years probation and prohibited him from using social media during that period.

In September, B’nai B’rith reported several anti-Semitic acts occurring over the Rosh Hashanah holiday, including in Ottawa, where a man spat at worshipers at an outdoor service and called them “dirty [expletive] Jews” as he drove by. On September 18, a man harassed a Jewish father and his son outside a synagogue in Thornhill, a community north of Toronto, yelling, “You’re a piece of [expletive], you’re Jewish, you run the [expletive] world.”

According to B’nai B’rith Canada, the Polish-language newspaper Glos Polski blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on a Jewish plot in an article published in March and republished in April. The article also said Jews created and controlled ISIS, described Israel as “the cause of all the world’s woes” and “an emanation of the Devil himself,” and stated Jews sought to take over Poland. B’nai Brith asked police to open a hate crime investigation. By year’s end, police had not opened an investigation.

According to B’nai B’rith Canada, police in June arrested the publisher of the Polish-language publication Goniec, based in Mississauga, Ontario, for disseminating articles with anti-Semitic content in 2019. The articles accused Jews and Zionists of having “terrorism in their blood,” stated Jews were spying on individuals through the WhatsApp cell phone application, said certain foreign governments were controlled by Jews, and urged readers “to stand up to the Jews.” Police released the man without charge, but cautioned him that they would file charges if he continued to promote hatred against Jews. The news outlet removed the content from its website.

In October, the Privy Council Office (PCO) that serves the Prime Minister confirmed it had opened an internal investigation into social media posts by an employee that allegedly contained anti-Semitic content. The posts reportedly disparaged the genetic heritage of Jews and claimed Jews participated in or enabled Nazi atrocities. The CIJA and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre brought the complaint. The posts were removed and the PCO issued a statement in which it expressed shock and disappointment with the content. The two organizations said they were gratified the PCO took the complaint seriously.

According to media reports, unknown individuals damaged statues outside Buddhist temples in Montreal in a series of incidents in February and March. Vandals smashed lion statues symbolizing protection with a sledgehammer at the Quan Am Temple on two separate occasions, and damaged statues at two other temples. Vandals also painted crosses on and defaced with graffiti lion statues at the gate of the Chinatown district. Police opened a hate crime investigation, but by year’s end made no arrests in the case.

According to media reports, police released security camera footage in January in an attempt to identify a male suspect in the defacement of the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. An unidentified individual pelted the monument with eggs days after the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Police opened a hate crime investigation, but by year’s end, made no arrests in the case.

In March, according to media reports, an unidentified individual painted a yellow swastika on a garbage can outside the Chevra Mishnayes Synagogue in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The synagogue previously had been targeted with similar vandalism. Police opened an investigation, but by year’s end made no arrests in the case.

In May, police cautioned three teenagers, informed their parents, and counselled the teens after they dumped a metal suitcase painted with a swastika and containing a dead skunk at the side of a road in Innisfil, Ontario in February. The area is home to two synagogues. Police opened a hate crime investigation, but determined the incident constituted an “immature prank” and not an anti-Semitic incident.

In June, according to media reports, police charged a Barrie, Ontario man with nine counts of mischief for painting swastikas and pro-Nazi and Holocaust references at multiple locations in downtown Barrie, including on buildings and on children’s playground equipment in a park. The graffiti included the names of Hitler, Goebbels, and Anne Frank. The vandalism occurred hours before the Barrie City Council voted to create an antiracism task force.

According to B’nai B’rith Canada and the CIJA, in July, high school student protestors in Mississauga, Ontario led and responded to chants in Arabic of “Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dogs” at a rally organized by student organization Sauga for Palestine in opposition to proposed Israeli government annexation of territory in the West Bank. Spokespersons for Sauga for Palestine said the chanting occurred after the protest had concluded and that rally organizers intervened to stop it; the organization also published an apology on its Facebook page. Jewish witnesses said the rally organizers did not stop the chants. The mayor of Mississauga issued a statement that she stood with the Jewish community “in strongly condemning these hateful and disturbing anti-Semitic comments,” and said the right to peaceful protest excluded promotion of hatred against individuals or groups. B’nai B’rith filed a complaint to police to open a hate crime investigation. By year’s end, police had not opened an investigation.

In June, according to media reports, police closed a hate crime investigation and determined it was a case of vandalism after unidentified individuals in May drew a swastika and the words “all heil Hitler” in chalk on the exterior walls of a school in Toronto. The area has a sizeable Jewish population and some of the school’s staff and students are Jewish.

In February, the Pew Research Center published findings on attitudes towards democratic principles, such as regular elections, free speech, and free civil society, as well as religious freedom, in 34 countries, based on interviews it conducted during its Spring 2019 Global Attitudes Survey. According to the findings, 65 percent of Canadian respondents considered religious freedom to be “very important,” ranking it among the lowest of their priorities for democratic principles among the nine tested.

In November, suspected Islamic militants killed four Christians in Lemban Tongoa village, Central Sulawesi Province. The perpetrators also burned down several homes, including one used as a house of worship. Following the attack, President Joko Widodo called the killings “beyond the limits of humanity.”

Shia and Ahmadi Muslims reported feeling under constant threat from “intolerant groups.” Anti-Shia and anti-Ahmadi rhetoric was common in online media outlets and on social media.

Individuals affiliated at the local level with the MUI used rhetoric considered intolerant by religious minorities, including fatwas declaring Shia and Ahmadis as deviant sects. In February, the chairman of the East Java MUI, Abdusshomad Buchori, stated he wanted the national MUI to release a new fatwa against the Shia community. The national MUI did not address or repudiate local MUI officials who called for such fatwas.

In August, a group of youths attacked a Shia prewedding ceremony in Solo city, Central Java, shouting anti-Shia slogans and assaulting several participants. Following the event, local police arrested several suspects for the assault.

According to Shia Rights Watch¸ in August, unknown individuals assaulted Shia Muslims attending a welcome dinner for a new Shia leader in the community, resulting in injuries to two youths.

In August, several Islamic organizations associated with the South Sulawesi chapter of the FUIB released a statement condemning the Shia community and its plans to commemorate Ashura, and said they would disrupt any events that the Shia community planned. The chairman of the South Sulawesi chapter of the FUIB, Muchtar Daeng Lau, cited an MUI fatwa that denounced Shia Islam as a form of heresy and condemned Shia commemorations of Ashura.

In April and May, reports of a “worldwide Jewish conspiracy” spread on social media that claimed Jews, Christians, and communists were using COVID-19 and related restrictions on public gatherings to destroy Islam. Large Muslim organizations dismissed the conspiracy theory, with the secretary general of Muhammadiyah, Abdul Mu’ti, stating in April that it was baseless.

Many of the largest and most influential religious groups and NGOs, including the two largest Islamic groups in the country – Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah – officially endorsed and advocated for tolerance, pluralism, and the protection of minority groups on numerous occasions. For example, on March 4, an interfaith group of representatives from 11 youth wings of the largest religious organizations in the country signed a declaration promoting religious tolerance within the country and internationally.

In January, the Alvara Research Center, a sociopolitical survey and marketing research company, released Indonesia Moslem Report 2019: The Challenges of Indonesia Moderate Moslems. The study consisted of face-to-face interviews with 1,567 Muslims across the country’s 34 provinces. The study’s findings included the following: 69.3 percent of respondents approved of or were neutral to the construction of houses of worship of other religions located near them, while 19.2 opposed such construction; 56.3 percent approved of or were neutral to the idea of non-Muslim political leaders, while 32.5 percent said they would not support a non-Muslim political leader; 82.9 percent would openly accept and help neighbors of different religions, while 16.3 percent said they would accept them but would limit the relationship due to religious differences; 0.5 percent said they would not accept neighbors of different religions; 81.6 percent believed the secular national ideology of Pancasila was an appropriate foundation for the country, while 18.3 percent believed a religious-based ideology would be more appropriate.

In November, the Center for the Study of Islam and Society at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University released a study showing that conversations on social media about religion were dominated by what it termed conservative narratives and traditional interpretations of the original teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Researchers categorized religious conversations on Twitter between 2009 and 2019 as being dominated by Islamist (4.5 percent), conservative (67 percent), moderate (22.2 percent), or liberal (6.1 percent) narratives. The lead researcher of the study, Iim Halimatussa’diyah, told media that a “noisy minority” pushing a conservative narrative was often able to co-opt conversations, while moderate narratives struggled to gain traction on social media.

In December 2019, the MORA released its Religious Harmony Index for 2019. The index used a survey of more than 13,000 respondents in 34 provinces to measure harmony across three dimensions: tolerance, equality, and solidarity. The index was scored from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most harmonious. The national score for 2019 was 73.83, up from 70.90 in 2018. According to the index, the most religiously harmonious provinces were West Papua (82.1), East Nusa Tenggara (81.1), Bali (80.1), North Sulawesi (79.9), and Maluku (79.4), all in the central and eastern parts of the country. The five lowest-rated provinces were Aceh (60.2), West Sumatra (64.4), West Java (68.5), Banten (68.9), and Riau (69.3), all in the west. Some civil society organizations and experts criticized the index as providing an overly optimistic assessment of religious freedom and harmony in the country.

On February 14-16, the Association of Journalists for Diversity held a three-day training event for students from different faiths and universities in Jakarta. Participants stayed with Ahmadiyya, Sunda Wiwitan, Catholic, and Christian communities in Kuningan Regency, West Java. After the event, the association encouraged participants to write about their experiences to promote religious freedom and tolerance among youth.

Hindu sites experienced acts of vandalism. In March, unknown individuals damaged three religious statues at the Agung Jagatnatha Temple in Denpasar city, Bali. In January, a Hindu school in Banyuwangi city, East Java, reported that unknown perpetrators broke into the facility and vandalized property.

On August 20, members of the local chapters of GP Ansor and Banser, organizations associated with Nahdlatul Ulama, confronted individuals suspected of supporting Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in Pasuruan Regency, East Java. HTI is the Indonesian branch of the Hizbut Tahrir, outlawed in 2017 by the government. Video of the confrontation spread widely online and appeared to show GP Ansor and Banser officials aggressively questioning and reprimanding alleged HTI supporters. Then Minister of Religious Affairs Fachrul Razi praised the organizations’ actions, while the secretary of the East Java chapter of the MUI, Ainul Yaqin, stated they should have reported the case to local police.

On September 29, a mosque in Tangerang regency, Banten, was vandalized with anti-Islamic messages written on the walls. On October 1, police arrested a suspect.

According to religious leaders, most disputes among religious communities occurred in villages and rural areas where the central government’s ability to enforce national laws was limited.

LEC leaders continued to say that growth in church membership exacerbated tensions within some communities, particularly with villagers who were wary of minority religions. According to one official, majority non-Christian neighbors often harassed new Christian members in these villages for abandoning their traditions, typically Buddhist or animist.

Religious leaders said that in some rural areas, there were again reports that villagers threatened to expel Christians from their villages if they did not renounce their faith.

According to RFA, in October, villagers from Pasing Village forced out seven Lao Christians of two households from their homes in Ta-Osey District, Salavan Province, for refusing to renounce their faith. Local sources reported that villagers also damaged their homes and belongings and nailed their doors shut. According to LEC leaders, the families returned to their homes to repair the damage, but remained concerned regarding future conflicts. Villagers later tore down the Christians’ homes; as of year’s end, the Christians remained homeless.

In many villages, religious disputes continued to be referred to government-sanctioned village mediation units comprised of private citizens. According to Christian group leaders, these units often encouraged Christians to compromise their beliefs by accommodating local Buddhist or animist community practices. In dealing with local disputes regarding religious issues, MOHA and LFND officials said they first waited for local authorities to resolve an issue before getting involved. MOHA and LFND officials continued to say their ministries did not have the resources to respond to every conflict.

According to Christian religious leaders, Christians said burial practices remained a contentious issue. In some rural areas, Christians said that they were not allowed to use public cemeteries, were not given land for separate cemeteries, and had to resort to burying their dead on farms or in backyards. A Christian leader said that in some areas, the church was trying to buy land for cemeteries so members would not have to use public cemeteries, and some Christian churches discussed purchasing land together to build Christian cemeteries.

Several religious groups said they provided donations without regard to the religious affiliation of the recipients after floods in the southern provinces of Sekong and Savannakhet occurred in October.

Violent incidents, particularly in rural areas in the south of the country where Muslims comprise the majority of the population, were frequently associated with interclan rido (feud) violence. Since religion and ethnicity are often closely linked, incidents were difficult to classify as solely based on religious identity.

Religious scholars and leaders within the Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant communities stated relations among religious groups were generally amicable, but they reported tensions among different religious and ethnic groups, especially in conflict-affected areas such as Marawi City and Sulu Province. Social media comments denigrating the beliefs or practices of Muslims continued to appear.

The NCMF reported no formal incidents of discrimination during the year but stated that subtle forms of anti-Muslim societal discrimination existed throughout the country. For example, the NCMF reported that private companies often required job seekers to list their religion on job applications. The NCMF also said that private citizens made discriminatory comments linking Muslim Filipinos to violence, especially following a violent incident either in the country or abroad. Following the August suicide attack in Jolo, Sulu Province, the NCMF reported that a text message circulated among non-Muslims in Mindanao warning them to take extra precautions.

In August, the Commission on Human Rights reported that a female member of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church wearing conservative attire was denied entry to a provincial sports complex for not wearing proper sports attire.

Religious communities continued to participate in interreligious efforts to alleviate friction, foster connections, and address discrimination. The CBCP collaborated with other Christian groups and the government Interagency Council against Human Trafficking to combat trafficking in persons and partnered with other Christian groups to campaign against the death penalty and the Antiterrorism Act of 2020. The CBCP also engaged with other faith-based organizations to provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities and to promote solidarity, peace, and harmony. In February, Equal Access International – a peace promotion NGO – hosted the OURmindaNOW 2020 peace summit in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, which enabled interreligious dialogue among more than 400 participants. The summit encouraged participants, brought together from different faith groups, to craft a shared vision of the future of Mindanao by considering how to transform violent extremism, empower youth, and highlight positive narratives using alternative media.

According to the OLRC, there were 181 incidents it described as violating religious freedom in the first nine months of the year, six more than in the same period in 2019. OLRC statistics, which include media reporting, showed that the number of incidents had increased every year since 2014. Of the incidents, 136 targeted Christians, six were against Muslims, three against Jews, and 36 classified as against all faiths. There were two incidents of violence (both assaults on Catholics), 26 attacks on places of worship, 70 cases of harassment, and 83 cases of “public marginalization of religion.” According to the OLRC’s 2019 annual report published in June, Andalusia was the region with the most attacks on religious freedom in 2019, followed by Madrid and then Catalonia.

According to the Ministry of the Interior’s 2019 annual report on hate crimes, the most recent available, there were 66 hate crimes based on religious beliefs or practices and, separately, five motivated by anti-Semitism, in 2019, compared with 69 and eight such crimes, respectively, in 2018. Only crimes involving anti-Semitism are disaggregated, as they are treated as specific offenses in the penal code. Most of the religiously motivated crimes occurred in Catalonia (17 hate crimes based on religious beliefs, three specifically for anti-Semitism), followed by Madrid (8, 1), Basque Country (8, 0), and Andalusia (7, 0). The ministry’s report did not cite specific examples or provide a breakdown of religiously motivated incidents by type of crime. According to a ministry official, the figures in the annual report only included officially filed complaints and not incidents gathered from press reports.

The General Prosecutor’s 2019 annual report reported seven judicial processes opened during 2019 for hate crimes involving religion, compared with 16 such cases in 2018. The annual report noted two court rulings for crimes against religious sentiments.

In June, the Barcelona Hate Crimes Prosecutor’s Office asked for five years’ imprisonment for three neo-Nazis for assaulting a Sikh vendor in Barcelona in 2017. The perpetrators were charged with violent robbery and intimidation, with an added charge of discriminatory motives. This was the first case prosecutors brought to court of a hate crime against a Sikh.

In July, Catalan regional police arrested a man who unsuccessfully tried to burn an Islamic prayer room in Manlleu, and another man for attacking the alleged arsonist with a knife in revenge.

In May, police arrested a man in Esplugues de Llobregat for inciting hatred, violence, and discrimination after he suggested on a radio program with a large Muslim audience in Spain and Morocco that a Moroccan teacher and women’s rights activist would be beheaded if she lived in a different country because of her political beliefs and for disrespecting the Prophet Muhammad. The Barcelona Hate Crimes Prosecutor’s Office opened a case and police initiated deportation proceedings against the man, who was living in Spain in irregular status.

On October 14, the trial began of a woman accused of offending religious sentiments. The prosecutor sought a fine of 3,000 euros ($3,700) for the woman’s participation in a public procession on International Women’s Day in March 2013 in which she and unnamed others marched through the streets of Malaga with a large plastic vagina fashioned to look like the Virgin Mary, which the prosecutor stated was intended to mock the symbols and dogmas of the Catholic faith and its adherents. The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers originally filed the complaint and sought a prison sentence of one year and a fine imposed over 24 months. A November verdict gave the woman a 2,700-euro fine ($3,300). She stated that she would appeal the ruling.

On September 9, representatives from Netflix Spain appeared in a court in Colmenar Viejo to testify in a lawsuit filed against it by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers for offending religious sentiments related to its December 2019 release in the country of the Brazilian satire film The First Temptation of Christ. The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers said the film depicted Jesus Christ as “inept and homosexual” and called for its removal from Netflix’s streaming platform. The court had not delivered its judgment by year’s end.

On February 21, a judge in Madrid acquitted actor Willy Toledo of crimes against religious sentiments and obstruction of justice, a decision ratified by the Provincial Court of Madrid on November 21. The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers had brought a case against Toledo for posts he had made on his social media account in 2017 that it considered offensive to God and the Virgin Mary. In her judgment, the judge noted the comments were “in bad taste,” but ruled that the manner in which they were published on Toledo’s personal social media account did not constitute a crime.

In January, the University of Lleida announced it would review its nondiscrimination policies after a fourth-year nursing student was expelled from one of its centers for refusing to remove her hijab. The university readmitted the student to another of its centers.

A representative of the Movement Against Intolerance, a non-religiously affiliated NGO that compiles instances of religiously motivated hate crimes, said there was an increase in religiously motivated hate speech against Jews, Christians, and Muslims on social media sites. The FCJE’s Observatory of Anti-Semitism and the Movement Against Intolerance noted an increase in anti-Semitic speech on social media, including blaming Jews for creating the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May, a regional court in Ceuta sentenced a man convicted of inciting hatred against Israel and Jewish communities on social networks to a year’s imprisonment (suspended due to lack of prior convictions), a fine, and a three-year prohibition from working in education or sports.

In February, during separate carnival celebrations, participants dressed as Nazis and Holocaust victims participated in town parades. In Badajoz, a 160-member group paraded dressed in suits that were split down the middle (half Nazi soldier and half concentration camp prisoner), choreographed to march and dance together to pop music. Props included a tank, metal fences, and a banner that displayed a swastika and Star of David together and signaled the gateway to the Auschwitz camp. In Campo de Criptana, a 130-member group dressed as Jewish prisoners, Nazi officers, and women in red coats resembling costumes from the movie Schindler’s List danced to disco music with props that included a gas chamber float embellished with two crematorium chimneys. The Israeli embassy condemned the Campo de Criptana parade, stating it made a mockery of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis. The Campo de Criptana City Council issued a statement condemning the parade. Both groups of participants stated their intention was to pay tribute to Holocaust victims.

In July, the Moroccan Association of Immigrant Rights (AMDI) of Puertollano filed two complaints with the local prosecutor for alleged hate crimes against three individuals who published social media posts that AMDI said “incited hatred against the Muslim community.” AMDI said the posts were prompted by its request that the city council permit a section of the cemetery be used by the Muslim community, as deaths were increasing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. AMDI cited posts that suggested there was burial room for Muslims “in a gutter.”

An FCJE representative said the group was particularly concerned about the rise of BDS support campaigns in university student organizations. The FCJE representative said student organizations sometimes promoted exhibitions that focused more on attacking Israel and Jews than on supporting the Palestinian cause. In May, the Valencia regional government cancelled plans to have the group “BDS Valencia Country” host a teacher training course on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia after FCJE and others complained the group promoted hatred and discrimination against Jews. In September, the FCJE and the Simon Wiesenthal Center called for the cancellation of an online course offered by the Public University of Navarre entitled “Apartheid in Palestine and the Criminalization of Solidarity.” The center denounced inclusion of the leader of the international BDS movement in the course and said it had the potential to incite attacks against Jewish institutions in Spain.

There were several incidents of religiously motivated vandalism, many of which were referred to the courts. In December, the FCJE, the Jewish Community of Madrid, and the Movement against Intolerance denounced and vowed to take legal action against the defacement of a Jewish cemetery in Madrid with graffiti saying, “Good Jew, Dead Jew.” In September, the Cartagena Association for Historic Memory denounced the defacement with swastikas, stars of David, and “Jews out” graffiti of a municipal monument dedicated to exiled Spanish Republicans from Cartagena who were deported to Nazi concentration camps. In July, police in Malaga arrested a man for vandalizing a Catholic chapel and injuring a woman nearby. Also in July, the Alcazar de San Juan city council condemned graffiti that included the words “fascists,” “Christians,” and “pandemic” that appeared on three different Catholic religious buildings. In June, the Association of Christian Lawyers filed a complaint against the individuals who removed the head and feet of a statue of Jesus Christ in La Roda. In March, a judge in Segovia agreed to open an investigation against a leftist group for vandalizing a church with graffiti that said, “For historic memory, against Francoism.” In January, a building at Alfonso X the Wise University in Villanueva de la Canada was defaced with graffiti that said, “I command, kill Jews” and a swastika. A wall at a nearby park was defaced with swastikas and graffiti that said, “Free Palestine” and “Kill a Jew.”

In September, the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue (AUDIR), a Catalan NGO, organized its fifth “Night of Religions” in Barcelona, in which 36 places of worship representing 15 different religious groups opened their doors and invited local residents. More than 1,200 persons took part in the activities, which were conducted both in person and online. AUDIR continued to implement the “Building Bridges” project, in which 30 youths from different faiths attended courses on interfaith dialogue, among other topics. As part of the program, the participants visited places of worship and schools in their neighborhoods and gave talks on religious diversity to students and community members.

Reports of violence against religious groups were largely confined to the Deep South, where ethnic Malay Muslim insurgents continued to attack Buddhists and Muslims. Authorities blamed Muslim insurgents for a February 24 bomb attack in Songkhla Province that injured at least 10 persons, including nine Buddhists and one Muslim. The victims included a deputy district chief, security volunteers, villagers, and students. Authorities said they believed the attack was retaliation for the killing of five Muslim villagers in Narathiwat Province on February 23, which Deep South Watch said was extrajudicial. There were no reports of attacks on monks or temples, and no reports of major attacks on security checkpoints, in contrast to previous years.

Some Buddhist groups expressed frustration with perceived special allowances for Muslims, such as financial assistance, job placement, and lower testing standards for Muslim university students.

In February, the Chiang Mai Provincial Islamic Committee petitioned authorities regarding anti-Muslim activities in Chiang Mai and Lamphun by “the Buddhism Protection Organization for Peace,” which the committee called an extremist movement. During a June parliamentary session, a member of the coalition Democrat Party raised a motion with the Prime Minister against the group, citing its efforts to organize anti-Muslim events and materials and to obstruct the construction and registration of mosques. In June, Deputy House Speaker Supachai Phosu and Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office Tewan Liptapanlop, whose responsibilities included overseeing religious affairs, responded by stating the NBB and the Supreme Sangha Council had already instructed monks and temples not to associate with the movement.

Buddhist activists continued to campaign to designate Buddhism as the country’s official religion. The Pandin Dharma (Land of Dharma) Party, led by Buddhist nationalist Korn Meedee, had a platform that advocated making Buddhism the state religion and called for the establishment of segregated, Buddhist-only communities in the country’s three southern Muslim-majority provinces. As of October, the party had 8,573 members with five regional party offices, according to the Election Commission of Thailand.