Religious discrimination involves treating a person or group differently because of what they believe

in or because that person is married to (or associated with) an individual of a particular religion.

Religious discrimination is related to religious persecution, the most extreme form of discrimination
which would include instances in which people have been executed because of their beliefs. It may
be triggered by religious intolerance, hatred, prejudice and dislike or by the state when it views a
particular religious group as a threat to its interests or security. And because of
this dehumanisation of a particular religious group, in many countries, religious persecution has
resulted in so much violence that it is considered a human rights problem.

Even in societies where freedom of religion is a constitutional right, adherents of religious minorities
sometimes suffer religious discrimination.

Discrimination against Jewish

The discrimination and persecution of Jewish people has been a major part of Jewish history,
reaching its most destructive form in the policies of Nazi Germany, culminating in the killing of
approximately 6,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust from 1941 to 1945.

Argentina is home to a Jewish community of 230,000 people, the largest in Latin America and sixth
in the world outside Israel. The most recent manifestations of Argentina's history of anti-Semitism
include:

The serious acts of anti-Semitic persecution during the military regimes, and especially
during the dictatorship known as the Process of National Reorganization when some Jews
were tortured, degraded, and even murdered for the sole fact of being Jewish. In the secret
detention centres it was common practice to burn the Star of David onto the bodies of
Jewish prisoners.

The terrorist bombing of the Israeli embassy in 1992 when a pick-up truck driven by a suicide
bomber and loaded with explosives smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy and
detonated. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed.
Four Israelis died, but most of the victims were Argentine civilians, many of them children.
The explosion killed 29 and wounded 242.

The bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) in 1994 when a suicide
bomber drove a van bomb into the AMIA. 85 people were killed and hundreds were injured.

No suspects have been convicted for the bombings and there have been many allegations
made, including those blaming the government of Iran. That means that the people
responsible for these attacks today are free and unpunished, and that the families and
friends of the victims still dont know who killed their loved ones.

Anti-Semitism in daily life is widely apparent in Argentina. A prime example of this occurs regularly
at the Atlanta association football club located in the Villa Crespo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires,
a district that has a significant Jewish population. For several years now the fans of opposing teams
root for their clubs by waving Nazi flags and throwing soaps onto the playing field.
Last year, a group of students from a German school from Buenos Aires who were in Bariloche, went
to a costume party in a disco wearing swastikas. At the same disco there were students from another
school, which has a Jewish majority, who felt uncomfortable and indignant because they were being
insulted by the others students. They told the coordinators to get them out of that disco, but they
only tried to erase the Nazi symbol. The aggression continued so they started fighting.

Discrimination against Muslims

Islamophobia is an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated
by negative stereotypes resulting in discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims
from social, political, and civic life. It existed before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but it
increased in frequency and notoriety during the past decade.

Respect and Fair Treatment

Globally, many Muslims report not feeling respected by those in the West. Significant percentages of
several Western countries share this sentiment, saying that the West does not respect Muslim societies.

Several elements can affect the interactions and degree of respect between Muslim and Western
societies. Differences in culture, religion, and political interests may shape one population's opinion
toward the other.

Today there are cases of Islamophobia in the US, for example, where hate crimes against American
Muslims have increased, including arsons to mosques, which means that people intentionally set fire to
Muslims temples, assaults, shootings and threats of violence.

This violent reaction against American Muslims is driven not only by the string of terrorist attacks in
Europe and the United States that began in 2015, but also by the policies from candidates like Donald J.
Trump, who has called for a ban on immigration by Muslims and a national registry of Muslims in the
United States.

The Muslim refugees converting to Christianity 'to find safety'

The situation for refugees in Lebanon - which is hosting more than a million and a half Syrians that make
up a quarter of its total population - has become increasingly dire over the course of the six-year conflict.

Some say they converted to benefit from the generous aid distributed by Christian charities, others to
help their asylum applications to Europe, the United States, Canada and elsewhere.

Christian converts are more likely to be persecuted in the Middle East than those who stay Muslims, and
are thus more eligible for asylum.

A lot of people are doing it to get to Europe, the US and Canada. While I plan to stay in Lebanon, I know
hundreds who been baptised just to help their applications. They would do anything to have security for
their family. (Syrian Muslim man who left his wife and seven kids behind and travelled to Lebanon in
the hope of raising some money to send back. He ended up in an Anglican Church where they offered
him a bed, two hot meals a day and a small monthly salary, on the condition he agreed to attend their
weekly Bible study sessions. He was baptised)

Muslim even choose to quit to what they truly believe in because they are desperate to escape war and
try to find a better place to live.