Persecution of African traditional religions Traditional African religions have faced religious persecution from Christians and Muslims. Adherents of these religions have been
forcefully converted to
Islam and
Christianity, demonized and
marginalized. The atrocities include killings, waging war, destroying of sacred places, and other atrocities.
Persecution of Dogons For almost 1000 years, had faced religious and ethnic persecution—through
jihads by dominant Muslim communities. These jihadic expeditions were undertaken in order to force the Dogon to abandon
their traditional religious beliefs and convert to Islam. Such jihads caused the Dogon to abandon their original villages and move up to the
cliffs of Bandiagara in search of a place where they could defend themselves more efficiently and escape persecution—which they often did by building their dwellings in little nooks and crannies. In the early era of
French colonialism in Mali, the French authorities appointed Muslim relatives of
El Hadj Umar Tall as chiefs of the
Bandiagara—despite the fact that the area has been a Dogon area for centuries. In recent years, the Dogon have accused the
Fulanis of supporting
Islamic terrorist groups like
Al-Qaeda and they have also accused the Fulanis of sheltering members of these same terrorist groups in Dogon country, leading to the creation of the Dogon militia
Dan Na Ambassagou in 2016—whose aim is to defend the Dogon against systematic attacks. That action resulted in the
Ogossagou massacre of Fulanis in March 2019, and the Fula retaliated by committing the
Sobane Da massacre in June of that year. In the wake of the Ogossagou massacre, the
President of Mali,
Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his government ordered the dissolution of Dan Na Ambassagou—whom they hold partly responsible for the attacks. The Dogon militia group denied its involvement in the massacre and it also rejected calls to disband itself.
Persecution of Serers The persecution of the
Serer people of
Senegal,
Gambia and
Mauritania is multifaceted, and as a result, it includes religious and ethnic elements. The religious and ethnic persecution of the Serer people dates back to the 11th century, when
King War Jabi usurped the throne of
Tekrur (a part of present-day Senegal) in 1030, and in 1035, he introduced
Sharia law and forced his subjects to submit to
Islam. With the assistance of his son Leb, their
Almoravid allies and other
African ethnic groups which had embraced Islam, the Muslim coalition army launched
jihads against the Serer people of Tekrur because they refused to abandon the
Serer religion in favour of Islam. The number of Serers who were killed is unknown, but the defeat of the Serers at Tekrur triggered their exodus from Tekrur to the south, where they were granted asylum by the
lamanes.
Persecutions of atheists Used before the 18th century as an insult,
atheism was punishable by death in
ancient Greece as well as in the
Christian and
Muslim worlds during the
Middle Ages. Today, atheism is punishable by death in 12 countries (
Afghanistan,
Iran,
Malaysia, the
Maldives,
Mauritania,
Nigeria,
Pakistan,
Qatar,
Saudi Arabia,
Somalia,
Sudan and
Yemen), all of them Muslim-majority, while "the overwhelming majority" of the 193 United Nations member countries "at best discriminate against citizens who have no belief in a god and at worst they can jail them for offences which are dubbed blasphemy".
State atheism State atheism has been defined by David Kowalewski as the official "promotion of
atheism" by a government, typically by the active suppression of
religious freedom and practice. It is a
misnomer which is used in reference to a government's
anti-clericalism, its opposition to religious institutional power and influence, whether it is real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. State atheism was first practiced for a brief period in
Revolutionary France and later it was practiced in
Revolutionary Mexico and
Marxist-Leninist states. The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, in which social success largely required individuals to profess atheism, stay away from churches and even vandalize them; this attitude was especially militant during the middle Stalinist era from 1929 to 1939. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress religion over wide areas of its influence, including places like central Asia, and the post-
World War II Eastern bloc. One state within that bloc, the
Socialist People's Republic of Albania under
Enver Hoxha, went so far as to officially ban all religious practices.
Persecution of Baháʼís The
Baháʼís are Iran's largest religious minority, and Iran is the location of one of the seventh largest Baháʼí population in the world, with just over 251,100 as of 2010. Baháʼís in Iran have been subject to unwarranted arrests, false imprisonment, beatings, torture, unjustified executions, confiscation and destruction of property owned by individuals and the Baháʼí community, denial of employment, denial of government benefits, denial of civil rights and liberties, and denial of access to higher education. More recently, in the later months of 2005, an intensive anti-Baháʼí campaign was conducted by Iranian newspapers and radio stations. The state-run and influential
Kayhan newspaper, whose
managing editor is appointed by Iran's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Khamenei The press in Iran, ran nearly three dozen articles defaming the Baháʼí Faith. Furthermore, a confidential letter sent on 29 October 2005 by the Chairman of the Command Headquarters of the Armed Forced in Iran states that the Supreme Leader of Iran,
Ayatollah Khamenei has instructed the Command Headquarters to identify people who adhere to the Baháʼí Faith and to monitor their activities and gather any and all information about the members of the Baháʼí Faith. The letter was brought to the attention of the international community by Asma Jahangir, the
Special Rapporteur of the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights on freedom of religion or belief, in a 20 March 2006 press release In the press release the Special Rapporteur states that she "is highly concerned by information she has received concerning the treatment of members of the Baháʼí community in Iran." She further states that "The Special Rapporteur is concerned that this latest development indicates that the situation with regard to religious minorities in Iran is, in fact, deteriorating." [https://web.archive.org/web/20060426122357/http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/5E72D6B7B624AABBC125713700572D09?opendocument.
Persecution of Buddhists The persecution of Buddhists has been a widespread phenomenon throughout the
history of Buddhism, a phenomenon which continues to occur today. As early as the 3rd century AD, Buddhists were persecuted by Kirder, the Zoroastrian high priest of the
Sasanian Empire. Anti-Buddhist sentiments in
Imperial China between the 5th and 10th century led to the
Four Buddhist Persecutions in China of which the
Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of 845 was probably the most severe. However Buddhism managed to survive but was greatly weakened. During the
Northern Expedition, in 1926 in
Guangxi,
Kuomintang Muslim General
Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing idols, turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang party headquarters. During the
Kuomintang Pacification of Qinghai, the Muslim General Ma Bufang and his army wiped out many Tibetan Buddhists in the northeast and eastern Qinghai, and destroyed
Tibetan Buddhist temples. The
Muslim invasion of the Indian subcontinent was the first great
iconoclastic invasion into the
Indian subcontinent. According to William Johnston, hundreds of Buddhist monasteries and shrines were destroyed, Buddhist texts were
burnt by the Muslim armies, monks and nuns killed during the 12th and 13th centuries in the
Indo-Gangetic Plain region. The Buddhist university of
Nalanda was mistaken for a fort because of the walled campus. The Buddhist monks who had been slaughtered were mistaken for Brahmins according to
Minhaj-i-Siraj. The walled town, the
Odantapuri monastery, was also conquered by his forces. Sumpa basing his account on that of
Śākyaśribhadra who was at
Magadha in 1200, states that the Buddhist university complexes of Odantapuri and
Vikramshila were also destroyed and the monks massacred. Muslim forces attacked the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent many times. Many places were destroyed and renamed. For example, Odantapuri's monasteries were destroyed in 1197 by
Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji and the town was renamed. Likewise,
Vikramashila was destroyed by the forces of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji around 1200. The sacred
Mahabodhi Temple was almost completely destroyed by the Muslim invaders. Many Buddhist monks fled to
Nepal, Tibet, and
South India to avoid the consequences of war. Tibetan pilgrim Chöjepal (1179–1264), who arrived in India in 1234, had to flee advancing Muslim troops multiple times, as they were sacking Buddhist sites. In Japan, the
haibutsu kishaku during the
Meiji Restoration (starting in 1868) was an event triggered by the official policy of separation of
Shinto and Buddhism (or
shinbutsu bunri). This caused great destruction to
Buddhism in Japan, the destruction of Buddhist temples, images and texts took place on a large scale all over the country and Buddhist monks were forced to return to secular life. During the
2012 Ramu violence in Bangladesh, a 25,000-strong Muslim mob set fire to destroy at least twelve Buddhist temples and around fifty homes throughout the town and surrounding villages after seeing a picture of an allegedly desecrated
Quran, which they claimed had been posted on Facebook by Uttam Barua, a local Buddhist man. The actual posting of the photo was not done by the Buddhist who was falsely slandered.
Persecution of Christians of Rome. From the beginnings of Christianity as a
movement within Judaism,
Early Christians were persecuted for their
faith at the hands of both
Jews and the
Roman Empire, which controlled much of the
areas where Christianity was first distributed. This continued from the
first century until the early
fourth, when the religion was legalized by the
Edict of Milan, eventually becoming the
State church of the Roman Empire. Many Christians fled persecution in the Roman empire by emigrating to the Persian empire where for a century and a half after Constantine's conversion, they were persecuted under the Sassanids, with thousands losing their lives. Christianity continued to spread through "merchants, slaves, traders, captives and contacts with Jewish communities" as well as missionaries who were often killed for their efforts.
Christians in 1922, fleeing their homes from
Kharput to
Trebizond. In the 1910s and 1920s the
Armenian,
Greek, and
Assyrian genocides were perpetrated by the
Ottoman government In contemporary society, Christians are persecuted in
Iran and other parts of the Middle East, for example, for
proselytising, which is illegal there. Of the 100–200 million Christians alleged to be under assault, the majority are persecuted in Muslim-majority nations. Every year, the Christian non-profit organization
Open Doors publishes the World Watch List—a list of the top 50 countries which it designates as the most dangerous for Christians. The 2018 World Watch List has the following countries as its top ten:
North Korea, and
Eritrea, whose Christian and Muslim religions are controlled by the state, and
Afghanistan,
Myanmar,
Somalia,
Sudan,
Pakistan,
Libya,
Iraq,
Yemen, India and
Iran, which are all predominantly non-Christian. Due to the large number of Christian majority countries, differing groups of Christians are harassed and persecuted in Christian countries such as Eritrea and Mexico more often than in Muslim countries, although not in greater numbers. There are low to moderate restrictions on religious freedom in three-quarters of the world's countries, with high and very high restrictions in a quarter of them, according to the State Department's report on religious freedom and persecution delivered annually to Congress. The Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte—the International Society for Human Rights—in Frankfurt, Germany is a non-governmental organization with 30,000 members from 38 countries who monitor human rights. In September 2009, then chairman Martin Lessenthin, issued a report estimating that 80% of acts of religious persecution around the world were aimed at Christians at that time. According to the
World Evangelical Alliance, over 200 million Christians are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith. A report released by the UK's
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and a report by the PEW organization studying worldwide restrictions of religious freedom, both have Christians suffering in the highest number of countries, rising from 125 in 2015 to 144 as of 2018. PEW has published a caution concerning the interpretation of these numbers: "The Center's recent report ... does not attempt to estimate the number of victims in each country... it does not speak to the intensity of harassment..." However, the BBC has reported that others such as Open Doors and the
International Society for Human Rights have disputed that number's accuracy. Gina Zurlo, the CSGC's assistant director, explained that two-thirds of the 90,000 died in tribal conflicts, and nearly half were victims of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Klaus Wetzel, an internationally recognized expert on religious persecution, explains that Gordon-Conwell defines Christian martyrdom in the widest possible sense, while Wetzel and Open doors and others such as
The International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF) use a more restricted definition: "those who are killed,
who would not have been killed, if they had not been Christians." Open Doors documents that anti-Christian sentiment is presently based on direct evidence and makes conservative estimates based on indirect evidence. This approach dramatically lowers the numerical count. Open Doors says that, while numbers fluctuate every year, they estimate 11 Christians are currently dying for their faith somewhere in the world every day.
Persecution of Copts The persecution of Copts is a historical and ongoing issue in
Egypt against
Coptic Orthodox Christianity and its followers. It is also a prominent example of the poor status of
Christians in the Middle East despite the religion being native to the region.
Copts are the
Christ followers in Egypt, usually
Oriental Orthodox, who currently make up around 10% of the population of Egypt—the largest religious minority of that country. Copts have cited instances of persecution throughout their history and
Human Rights Watch has noted "growing religious intolerance" and sectarian violence against Coptic Christians in recent years, as well as a failure by the Egyptian government to effectively investigate properly and prosecute those responsible. The
Muslim conquest of Egypt took place in AD 639, during the
Byzantine Empire. Despite the political upheaval, Egypt remained a mainly Christian, but Copts lost their majority status after the 14th century, as a result of the intermittent persecution and the destruction of the Christian churches there, accompanied by heavy taxes for those who refused to convert. From the
Muslim conquest of Egypt onwards, the Coptic Christians were persecuted by different Muslims regimes, such as the
Umayyad Caliphate,
Abbasid Caliphate,
Fatimid Caliphate,
Mamluk Sultanate, and
Ottoman Empire; the persecution of Coptic Christians included closing and demolishing churches and
forced conversion to
Islam. Since 2011 hundreds of Egyptian Copts have been killed in sectarian clashes, and many homes, Churches and businesses have been destroyed. In just one province (
Minya), 77 cases of sectarian attacks on Copts between 2011 and 2016 have been documented by the
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The abduction and disappearance of Coptic Christian women and girls also remains a serious ongoing problem.
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses Political and religious animosity against Jehovah's Witnesses has at times led to
mob action and government oppression in various countries. Their stance regarding political neutrality and their refusal to serve in the military has led to imprisonment of members who
refused conscription during
World War II and at other times where
national service has been compulsory. Their religious activities are currently banned or restricted in some countries, including China,
Vietnam, and many
Islamic states. • In 1933, there were approximately 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in
Nazi Germany, of whom about 10,000 were imprisoned.
Jehovah's Witnesses were brutally persecuted by the Nazis, because they
refused military service and allegiance to
Hitler's
National Socialist Party. Of those, 2,000 were sent to
Nazi concentration camps, where they were identified by
purple triangles; • In
Canada during World War II, Jehovah's Witnesses were interned in camps along with
political dissidents and people of Chinese and Japanese descent. Jehovah's Witnesses faced discrimination in
Quebec until the
Quiet Revolution, including bans on distributing
literature or holding
meetings. • In 1951, about 9,300 Jehovah's Witnesses in the
Soviet Union were deported to
Siberia as part of
Operation North in April 1951. • In April 2017, the
Supreme Court of Russia labeled Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist organization, banned its activities in Russia and issued an order to confiscate the organization's assets. Authors including
William Whalen, Shawn Francis Peters and former Witnesses
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Alan Rogerson and William Schnell have claimed the arrests and mob violence in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s were the consequence of what appeared to be a deliberate course of provocation of authorities and other religious groups by Jehovah's Witnesses. Whalen, Harrison and Schnell have suggested
Rutherford invited and cultivated opposition for publicity purposes in a bid to attract dispossessed members of society, and to convince members that persecution from the outside world was evidence of the truth of their struggle to serve God. Watch Tower Society literature of the period directed that Witnesses should "never seek a controversy" nor resist arrest, but also advised members not to co-operate with police officers or courts that ordered them to stop preaching, and to prefer jail rather than pay fines.
Persecution of Druze : in June 2015, Druze were
massacred there by the
jihadist Nusra Front. Historically the relationship between the
Druze and
Muslims has been characterized by intense persecution. The Druze faith is often classified as a branch of
Isma'ilism. Even though the faith originally developed out of
Ismaili Islam, most
Druze do not identify as Muslims, and they do not accept the
Five Pillars of Islam. The Druze have frequently experienced persecution by different Muslim regimes such as the
Shia Fatimid Caliphate,
Mamluk,
Sunni Ottoman Empire, and
Egypt Eyalet. The persecution of the Druze included
massacres, demolishing Druze prayer houses and holy places and
forced conversion to Islam. Those were no ordinary killings in the Druze's narrative, they were meant to eradicate the whole community according to the Druze narrative. Most recently, the
Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, saw persecution of the Druze at the hands of
Islamic extremists.
Ibn Taymiyya a prominent
Muslim scholar
muhaddith, dismissed the Druze as non-Muslims, and his
fatwa cited that Druzes: "Are not at the level of ′Ahl al-Kitāb (
People of the Book) nor
mushrikin (
polytheists). Rather, they are from the most deviant
kuffār (
Infidel) ... Their women can be taken as slaves and their property can be seized ... they are to be killed whenever they are found and cursed as they described ... It is obligatory to kill their scholars and religious figures so that they do not misguide others", which in that setting would have legitimized violence against them as
apostates.
Ottomans have often relied on Ibn Taymiyya religious ruling to justify their persecution of Druze.
Persecution of Falun Gong The persecution of the
Falun Gong spiritual practice began with campaigns initiated in 1999 by the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to eliminate Falun Gong in China. It is characterised by multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education, and a variety of extralegal coercive measures such as arbitrary arrests,
forced labor, and
physical torture, sometimes resulting in death. There have being reports of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Several researchers—most notably Canadian human rights lawyer
David Matas, former parliamentarian
David Kilgour, and investigative journalist
Ethan Gutmann—estimate that tens of thousands of Falun Gong
prisoners of conscience have been killed to supply a lucrative trade in human organs and cadavers.
Persecution of Hindus . The temple was completely destroyed on the orders of Muslim Sultan
Sikandar Butshikan in the early 15th century, with demolition lasting a year. For example, Hindus have been one of the targeted and persecuted minorities in
Pakistan. Militancy and sectarianism has been rising in Pakistan since the 1990s, and the religious minorities have "borne the brunt of the Islamist's ferocity" suffering "greater persecution than in any earlier decade", states
Farahnaz Ispahani—a Public Policy Scholar at the
Wilson Center. This has led to attacks and forced conversion of Hindus, and other minorities such as Christians. According to Tetsuya Nakatani—a Japanese scholar of Cultural Anthropology specializing in South Asia refugee history, after the mass exodus of Hindu, Sikh and other non-Muslim refugees during the 1947 partition of British India, there were several waves of Hindu refugees arrival into India from its neighbors. The fearful and persecuted refugee movements were often after various religious riots between 1949 and 1971 that targeted non-Muslims within West Pakistan or East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The status of these persecuted Hindu refugees in India was in political limbo until the passage of
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 by the Indian Government. Systemically in Pakistan, Hindus are persecuted under the government's Blasphemy Law (with often consequence of death irrelevant of the legal claim's accuracy), and as per the rhetoric of mainstream politicians interpreting vague constitutional law, have second-class rights in the nation regarding places of worship and facets of their religion. Similar concerns about religious persecution of Hindu and other minorities in Bangladesh have also been expressed. A famous report by Dr. Abul Barkat, a famous Bangladeshi economist and research, projects that there will be no Hindus left in Bangladesh in 30 years. The USCIRF notes hundreds of cases of "killings, attempted killings, death threats, assaults, rapes, kidnappings, and attacks on homes, businesses, and places of worship" on religious minorities in 2017. Since the 1990s, Hindus have been a persecuted minority in Afghanistan, and a subject of "intense hate" with the rise of religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan. The
Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) resulted in one of the largest genocides of the 20th century. While estimates of the number of casualties was 3,000,000, it is reasonably certain that Hindus bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistan Army's onslaught against the Bengali population of what was East Pakistan. An article in
Time magazine dated 2 August 1971, stated "the Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred." Senator
Edward Kennedy wrote in a report that was part of
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations testimony dated 1 November 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from
Islamabad". In the same report, Senator Kennedy reported that 80% of the refugees in India were Hindus and according to numerous international relief agencies such as
UNESCO and
World Health Organization the number of East Pakistani refugees at their peak in India was close to 10 million. Given that the Hindu population in East Pakistan was around 11 million in 1971, this suggests that up to 8 million, or more than 70% of the Hindu population had fled the country. The
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist
Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus both during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the
Pakistan Army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well), (
Newsday, 29 April 1994). Hindus constitute approximately 0.5% of the total population of the United States. Hindus in the US enjoy both
de jure and
de facto legal equality. However, a series of attacks were made on people Indian origin by a street gang called the "
Dotbusters" in
New Jersey in 1987, the dot signifying the
Bindi dot sticker worn on the forehead by Indian women. The lackadaisical attitude of the local police prompted the South Asian community to arrange small groups all across the state to fight back against the street gang. The perpetrators have been put to trial. On 2 January 2012, a Hindu worship center in New York City was firebombed. The
Dotbusters were primarily based in New York and New Jersey and committed most of their crimes in
Jersey City. A number of perpetrators have been brought to trial for these assaults. Although tougher anti-hate crime laws were passed by the New Jersey legislature in 1990, the attacks continued, with 58 cases of hate crimes against Indians in New Jersey reported in 1991. Persecution of Hindus also contemporarily has been seen in the Indian-administered union territory of
Jammu and Kashmir. In the
Kashmir region, approximately 300
Kashmiri Pandits were killed between September 1989 to 1990 in various incidents. In early 1990, local Urdu newspapers
Aftab and
Al Safa called upon Kashmiris to wage
jihad against India and ordered the expulsion of all Hindus choosing to remain in Kashmir. Many
Kashmiri Pandits have been killed by
Islamist militants in incidents such as the
Wandhama massacre and the
2000 Amarnath pilgrimage massacre. The incidents of massacring and forced eviction have been termed
ethnic cleansing by some observers. This trend has continued, sadly; Islamist groups in Bangladesh, nearing the 50th anniversary of the Bengali Hindu Genocide, set fire to and vandalized several Hindu temples along with 80 houses.
Persecutions of Jews '' A major component of
Jewish history, persecutions have been committed by
Seleucids,
ancient Greeks,
ancient Romans, Christians (
Catholic,
Orthodox and
Protestant),
Muslims,
Nazis, etc. Some of the most important events which constitute this
history include the
1066 Granada massacre, the
Rhineland massacres (by Catholics, but they were committed against papal orders, see also :
Sicut Judaeis), the
Alhambra Decree which was issued after the
Reconquista and the establishment of the
Spanish Inquisition, the publication of
On the Jews and Their Lies by
Martin Luther which furthered Protestant
anti-Judaism and was later used to strengthen
German antisemitism and justify
pogroms and
the Holocaust. According to the
FBI's statistics, the majority of religiously motivated
hate crimes which are committed in the United States are committed against Jews. In 2018, anti-Jewish hate crimes represented 57.8% of all religiously motivated hate crimes; followed by anti-Muslim hate crimes, which were the second most common, representing 14.5%.
Persecution of Muslims Persecution of Muslims is the religious persecution that is inflicted upon followers of the
Islamic faith. In the early days of Islam at
Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution by the
pagan Meccans (often called Mushrikin: the unbelievers or
polytheists). Muslims were persecuted by
Meccans at the time of
Muhammed. Currently, Muslims face religious restrictions in 142 countries according to the PEW report on rising religious restrictions around the world. According to the US State Department's 2019 freedom of religion report, the
Central African Republic remains divided between the Christian anti-Balaka and the predominantly Muslim ex-Seleka militia forces with many Muslim communities displaced and not allowed to practice their religion freely. In Nigeria, "conflicts between predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmen and predominantly Christian farmers in the North Central states continued throughout 2019." slogans written by
Ba'athist Syrian regime on the walls of
Hama city following the
Hama Massacre in 1982. The propaganda writing, which translates to "There is no god but the homeland, and there is no messenger but the Ba'ath party", mocked the
Shahada (Islamic testimony of faith). Hama massacre is estimated to have killed over 40,000 Muslims Shia-Sunni conflicts persist.
Indonesia is approximately 87% Sunni Muslim, and "Shia and Ahmadi Muslims reported feeling under constant threat." Anti-Shia rhetoric was common throughout 2019 in some online media outlets and on social media." In
Saudi Arabia, the government "is based largely on sharia as interpreted by the Hanbali school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. Freedom of religion is not provided under the law." In January and May 2019, police raided predominantly Shia villages in the al-Qatif Governorate... In April the government executed 37 citizens ... 33 of the 37 were from the country's minority
Shia community and had been convicted following what they stated were unfair trials for various alleged crimes, including protest-related offenses... Authorities detained ... three Shia Muslims who have written in the past on the discrimination faced by Shia Muslims, with no official charges filed; they remained in detention at year's end... Instances of prejudice and discrimination against Shia Muslims continued to occur..."
Islamophobia can refer
prejudice against Muslims, which can be distinct from
persecution of Muslims. In Finland, "A report by the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said hate crimes and intolerant speech in public discourse, principally against Muslims and asylum seekers (many of whom belong to religious minorities), had increased in recent years... A Finns Party politician publicly compared Muslim asylum seekers to an invasive species." There were several demonstrations by neo-Nazis and nativist groups in 2019. One neo-Nazi group, the NRM (the Nordic Resistance Movement), "continued to post anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic statements online and demonstrated with the anti-immigrant group
Soldiers of Odin." The ongoing
Rohingya genocide has resulted in over 25,000 deaths from 2016 to present. Over 700,000 refugees have been sent abroad since 2017.
Gang rapes and other acts of
sexual violence, mainly against Rohingya women and girls, have also been committed by the Rakhine Buddhists and the Burmese military's soldiers, along with the arson of Rohingya homes and mosques, as well as many other human rights violations. The
Chinese government has
persecuted the majority-Muslim Uyghur people and other ethnic and religious minorities in and around the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the
People's Republic of China. Since 2014, the Chinese government, under the direction of the CCP during the
administration of
CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, has pursued policies leading to more than one million
Muslims (the majority of them Uyghurs) being held in secretive
internment camps without any
legal process in what has become the largest-scale and most systematic detention of ethnic and religious minorities since
the Holocaust. The Chinese Government has subjected hundreds of thousands of members of Muslim minority groups living in Xinjiang to
forced abortions,
forced sterilizations, and the forced administration of contraceptives (including contraceptive implants), methods of birth control that had exempted ethnic minorities up until that point. Uyghurs and members of other minority groups have been made subject to a widespread forced labor apparatus. In China, General Secretary
Xi Jinping has decreed that all members of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be "unyielding Marxist atheists". In
Xinjiang province, the government enforced restrictions on Muslims. The U.S. government estimates that
Persecution of Pagans and Heathens Persecutions of Sikhs Sikhism is a
Dharmic religion that originated in the
Punjab region of the
Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. The Sikh religion developed and evolved during periods of religious persecution, gaining converts from
Hinduism and
Islam.
Mughal emperors of India tortured and executed two of the Sikh gurus—
Guru Arjan (1563–1605) and
Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675)—after
they refused to convert to Islam. The persecution of Sikhs during the Islamic era triggered the founding of the
Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, the Khalsa is an order which was founded for the purpose of protecting the
freedom of conscience and
religion of the Sikhs, with members expressing the qualities of a
Sant-Sipāhī—a saint-soldier. In February 1762,
Afghan emperor
Ahmad Shah Durrani perpetrated a massacre against the families and camp followers of the
Sikh Army, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 people, in a massacre that is now known as
Vadda Ghalughara. Following the massacre, he attacked
Amritsar and desecrated the
Golden Temple by throwing cow carcasses into its sacred lake and then filling it with rubble from demolished
gurdwaras and
temples. According to Ashish Bose, a population research scholar, Sikhs and Hindus were well integrated in
Afghanistan until the
Soviet invasion when their economic condition worsened. Thereafter, they became the objects of "intense hate" as a result of the rise of religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan. In one instance, on 12 November 1947 alone between 3000 and 7000 were killed. A few weeks after on 25 November 1947, tribal forces began the
1947 Mirpur massacre of thousands more Hindus and Sikhs. An estimated 20,000+ died in the massacre. In June 1984, during
Operation Blue Star,
Indira Gandhi ordered the
Indian Army to attack the
Golden Temple and eliminate any insurgents, as it had been occupied by Sikh separatists who were stockpiling weapons.
Later operations by Indian paramilitary forces were initiated to clear the separatists from the countryside of
Punjab state. The 1984 anti-Sikhs riots were a series of
pogroms directed against
Sikhs in India, by anti-Sikh mobs, in response to the
assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. There were more than 8,000 deaths, including 3,000 in Delhi. The most affected regions were the Sikh neighbourhoods in Delhi. The
Central Bureau of Investigation, the main Indian investigating agency, is of the opinion that the acts of violence were organized with the support from the then Delhi police officials and the central government headed by Indira Gandhi's son,
Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister after his mother's death and, when asked about the riots, said "when a big tree falls (Mrs. Gandhi's death), the earth shakes (occurrence of riots)" thus trying to justify communal strife. It has been alleged that at that time, the
Indian National Congress's government destroyed evidence and shielded the guilty. The
Asian Age front-page story called the government's actions "the Mother of all Cover-ups" There are allegations that the violence was led and often perpetrated by Indian National Congress activists and sympathisers during the riots. The government, then led by the Congress, was widely criticised for doing very little at the time, possibly acting as a conspirator. The
conspiracy theory is supported by the fact that voting lists were used to identify Sikh families. Despite the communal conflict and despite the record of the riots, the Indian National Congress claims that it is a secular political party. The Chittisinghpura massacre, the murder of 35 villagers who were members of the
Sikh faith, was committed on 20 March 2000, in the Chittisinghpora (Chittisinghpura) village of the
Anantnag district,
Jammu and Kashmir, India, on the eve of President
Bill Clinton's state visit to India. The identities of the perpetrators of the massacre remain unknown. The Indian government asserts that the massacre was conducted by the Pakistan-based
militant group
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Other accounts accuse the
Indian Army and
RSS of the massacre. On
25 March 2020, ISIS-
Haqqani network Gunmen and Suicide bombers attacked the Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib (a
Sikh shrine) in
Kabul, Afghanistan. According to reports, about 200 worshipers were inside the building, 25 of them were killed and at least 8 others were wounded after an hour-long siege ended when all of the assailants were killed by responding security forces. At least one child was said to have been among the people who were killed, according to the ministry of interior's statement.
Persecution of Yazidis The Persecution of
Yazidis has been ongoing since at least the 10th century. The
Yazidi religion is regarded as
devil worship by
Islamists. Yazidis have been persecuted by Muslim
Kurdish tribes since the 10th century, After the 2014
Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by the
Islamic State, Yazidis still face violence at the hands of the
Turkish Armed Forces and its ally the
Syrian National Army, as well as discrimination at the hands of the
Kurdistan Regional Government. According to Yazidi tradition (based on oral traditions and folk songs), it is estimated that during the last 800 years, 74
genocides were committed against the Yazidis.
Persecution of Zoroastrians Iran, about 1910 The
persecution of Zoroastrians is the religious persecution which has been inflicted upon adherents of the
Zoroastrian faith. The persecution of Zoroastrians has occurred throughout their religion's history. The discrimination and harassment began in the form of sparse violence and
forced conversions. According to Zoroastrian records,
Muslims destroyed
fire temples. Zoroastrians who lived under Muslim rule were required to pay a tax which was called the
jizya. Zoroastrian
places of worship were desecrated,
fire temples were destroyed and mosques were built in their place. Many libraries were
burned and much of the cultural heritage of the Zoroastrians was lost. Gradually, an increasing number of discriminatory laws were passed, these laws regulated the behavior of Zoroastrians and they also limited the Zoroastrians' ability to participate in society. Over time, the persecution of Zoroastrians became more common and it also became widespread, and as a result, the number of believers significantly decreased by force. Zoroastrians regard the Qajar period as one of their worst. During the Qajar dynasty, the religious persecution of the Zoroastrians was rampant. Due to their increasing contacts with influential
Parsi philanthropists such as
Maneckji Limji Hataria, many Zoroastrians left
Iran and migrated to India. There, they formed the
Iranis, India's second largest Zoroastrian community. ==Persecution of philosophers==