The Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom has released the early results of their upcoming Religious Freedom in the World 2007. Some highlights:

• The greatest persecutors of religion are Islamist and communist regimes.
• Regimes that respect religious freedom also have more civil liberties, more prosperity, better health for their people, and less militarized societies.
• All of the most religiously free countries are democracies.
• Religiously free societies encourage private initiative and entrepreneurship.
• Almost all of the most religiously free countries are culturally Christian in background.

Marshall also pointed out that some tyrannies, and their apologists in the West, prioritize “economic rights” and supposed “Asian” and “Islamic” values over religious freedom for individuals.   But non-Western and historically poor countries such as Mongolia, Thailand, Mali and Senegal have achieved relative religious freedom, without sacrificing their culture or their religion.  ”It is a moral travesty of the highest order to maintain that because people are hungry or cold it is legitimate to repress their beliefs as well,” Marshall riposted.

So who did the best? The top “free countries” were:

And the most repressive places on Earth: