Persecution

Persecution, determined effort of a government to punish, silence, or bring into obedience, usually in violation of normal moral and legal restrictions. Minority groups, especially religious ones, are a frequent target of persecution.

For information on:

• persecution of the Jews, see Concentration Camp: Nazi Camps; Holocaust; Pogrom; Jews; Edward I; Spain: The Spanish Inquisition ; Isabella I; Dead Sea Scrolls; Daniel; Maccabees (books of Bible); Esther; Jeremiah
• persecution of Roma (Gypsies), see Roma; Hungary: Social Problems; Concentration Camp: Nazi Camps; Holocaust: The Death Camps
• persecutions of Christianity, see Christianity: Persecution; Japan: The Tokugawa Shōgunate; Apocalyptic Writings; Revelation (book of Bible); Timothy and Titus; Epistles of Peter
• some persecutions of Buddhism, see Buddhism: Asian Expansion; China: Religious Persecution and Disunion
• persecution of the Huguenots, see France: The Persecution of the Huguenots; Huguenots; Edict of Nantes; Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day
• some other severely persecuted religious minorities, see Quaker persecution in Society of Friends: Origins; George Fox; John Endecott; other sects and religions in Amish; Babism; Baptists; Lollards; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Persecution; Occultism; Parsis; Pilgrims; Witchcraft
• eloquent opponents of persecution, see Voltaire; Émile Zola
• the United States as a place of refuge from persecution, see poem in Statue of Liberty; Plymouth Colony; Maryland: European Exploration and Settlement; Immigration: Immigration to the U.S.
• other places of escape from persecution, see Israel: The British Mandate Period; also Paris (city, France): The Urban Landscape; Colonies and Colonialism: Early Modern Europe; Geneva in John Calvin, Jean Cavalier, Joseph Justus Scaliger
• other ways of evading persecution, see Catacombs; Secret Societies
• persecution to heroic death, see Martyrology
• sect that welcomed martyrdom, see Montanism
• legal protection from persecution, see discussion of the Fifth Amendment in Jeopardy; Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
• false belief that one is being persecuted, see Paranoia