KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 -- Religious restrictions in Malaysia have dwindled over the years, a recent study on 198 countries by Washington-based Pew Research Center released last week has shown.

Measured by two indices called the Government Restrictions Index (GR) and Social Hostilities Index (SHI), the most recent data of Malaysia in 2021 showed that the country scored 7.7 and 3.3 in both respectively.

In comparison, it had scored 8.5 and 3.5 respectively in 2020, which was markedly higher than the baseline year of 2007 (6.4 and 1.0). A higher score indicates a higher restriction.

Despite that, GRI showed that government restrictions on religion in Malaysia continue to persist at a "very high" level, with Malaysia lumped together in the...