ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the threads of religion involved in the patchwork of variables that interact and result in hate violence. Violence in the name of religion has a long and bloody history. After that ominous preface to the 21st century, the state of affairs concerning religious violence just worsened in different parts of the world. The Minority Rights Group International, a campaigning non-governmental organization founded in the 1970s to defend the rights of disadvantaged minorities and indigenous people, has been compiling annually since 2005 the people's under threat index, ranking countries at greatest risk of genocide, mass killing or other systematic violent repression. In many instances, the threat manifests itself as religious, sectarian, or ethnic conflict and persecution. In some instances, the religious, sectarian, and ethnic dynamics of the conflicts are entangled in a complex web of forces behind violence. Middle East and African states dominate as those with people's most at risk of mass killing.
