Persecution

Persecution happens when one person or group deliberately mistreats another, often through suffering, harassment, imprisonment, internment, fear, or pain. However, not every instance of suffering qualifies as persecution—there is ongoing debate over how severe the mistreatment must be. The most common types are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution. In a recent article, Jeremy Adler put forward the controversial idea that Western society itself can be seen as a "persecutory civilization."

Under international law, persecution is classified as a crime against humanity. This was established in the Nuremberg Principles, specifically Principle VI, which lists persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds as punishable when carried out alongside a crime against peace or a war crime. Telford Taylor, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, noted that the tribunals rejected several attempts to include purely domestic atrocities under this definition. Later treaties have sometimes dropped the requirement that persecution be linked to a war crime or crime against peace. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, binding on 124 states (as of 2024), defines crimes against humanity in Article 7.1 as certain acts "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack." This includes persecution against any identifiable group based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other universally recognized impermissible grounds, provided it is connected to acts like murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, apartheid, or other inhumane acts within the Court's jurisdiction.

Religious persecution has a long history. The Baháʼí Faith, which originated in Iran, faces ongoing persecution there; Iran has the seventh largest Baháʼí population globally, with over 251,100 members as of 2010, and they are the country's largest religious minority. Buddhists have also been persecuted for centuries. In the 3rd century AD, the Zoroastrian high priest Kirder targeted them in the Sasanian Empire. In Imperial China, between the 5th and 10th centuries, the Four Buddhist Persecutions occurred, with the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of 845 being the most severe; Buddhism survived but was greatly weakened.