The International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF) recently launched the Violent Incidents Database (VID), an initiative aimed at collecting, recording, and analyzing incidents related to violations of religious freedom across the globe. The VID aims to record violations of religious freedom on five continents, with an emphasis on tracking physical violence, but cannot claim exhaustive coverage. The data included in the VID is based on reports published in digital media available on the internet. Many incidents are never made public or do not receive sufficient attention from authorities or media. The database is constantly being updated as researchers identify religious freedom violations, but this is a complicated endeavour.
The VID discerns between two distinct types of religious freedom violations: physical violence and non-physical violence. Physical violence includes killings, torture, abductions, or similar assaults stemming from one’s religious identification. Non-physical violence mig