Failed State List 2007 and Religious Freedom

A provocative little blurb on Evangelical Outpost blog caught my attention:

The Failed States List 2007: The most failed state in the world according to the Index is Sudan. The second worse: Iraq.

The piece notes a relationship between stability and freedom of religion:

Freedom of worship may be a cornerstone of democracy, but it may also be a key indicator of stability. Vulnerable states display a greater degree of religious intolerance, according to scores calculated by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh, Burma, Iran, and Uzbekistan has deprived millions of faithful of the freedom to follow their beliefs. But religious repression is often nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to muzzle the country’s civil society.

(HT: PoliBlog)

Here’s the Failed States 2007 report (available in full only to Foreign Policy subscribers)