Sectarian violence
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Traditionally, sectarian violence implies a symmetrical confrontation between two or more non-state actors representing different population groups.
In the Japanese Middle Ages, different Buddhist sects had warrior monks and private armies that frequently clashed.
"[3] Following the onset of the Protestant Reformation, a series of wars were waged in Europe starting circa 1524 and continuing intermittently until 1648[citation needed].
According to Miroslav Volf, the European wars of religion were a major factor behind the "emergence of secularizing modernity"[citation needed].
In the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre followers of the Roman Catholic Church killed up to 30,000 Huguenots (French Protestants) in mob violence.
That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use.
There is an equal level of support for the more neutral Northern Irish identity, with 25% of people from each religion likely to choose that label as the best description.
[citation needed] Howard Goeringer criticizes both the "Catholic Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch" for failing to condemn the "deliberate massacre of men, women and children in the name of 'ethnic cleansing' as incompatible with Jesus' life and teaching.
Miroslav Volf cites a Roman Catholic bishop from Rwanda as saying, "The best cathechists, those who filled our churches on Sundays, were the first to go with machetes in their hands".
[17] Ian Linden asserts that "there is absolutely no doubt that significant numbers of prominent Christians were involved in sometimes slaughtering their own church leaders.
[19] The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) report on the genocide states, In the colonial era, under German and then Belgian rule, Roman Catholic missionaries, inspired by the overtly racist theories of 19th century Europe, concocted a destructive ideology of ethnic cleavage and racial ranking that attributed superior qualities to the country's Tutsi minority, since the missionaries ran the colonial-era schools, these pernicious values were systematically transmitted to several generations of Rwandans...[20]The Roman Catholic Church argues that those who took part in the genocide did so without the sanction of the Church.
Scotland's two largest and best supported football clubs—Glasgow Rangers, which, for many generations, has largely been identified with Protestants and unionism, and Glasgow Celtic, which, since its founding in the late 19th century, has been identified with Roman Catholics and Irish nationalism or republicanism—both subscribe, with varying degrees of success, to government initiatives and charities like the Nil by Mouth campaign are working in this area.
[25] [citation needed] Sectarian violence between the two major sects of Islam, Shia and Sunni, has occurred arising out of differences over the succession to Muhammad.
The first major incident of this sectarian violence was killing of the Arif Hussain Hussaini, founding leader of TFJ in 1986.
The focus of this violence has been Kurram, Hangu, Dera Ismail Khan, Bahawalpur, Jhang, Quetta,Gigit- Baltistan and Karachi.
They are fighting in order to prevent Wahhabism from being imposed on Somalia and to protect the country's Sunni-Sufi traditions and generally moderate religious views.
According to The Washington Post, "In today’s Middle East, activated sectarianism affects the political cost of alliances, making them easier between co-religionists.
[29][30] Piara Singh Bhaniara started his own heretical Sikh sect and dera with about 600,000 followers in the 1980s resulting in him being ex-communicated by the Akal Takht.
In the summer of 2000, a local gurudwara disallowed one of Bhaniara's followers from carrying the Sikh religious holy book Guru Granth Sahib.
The Punjab Police arrested and presented before media some young men, who stated that they had burned Guru Granth Sahib at the insistence of Bhaniara.
In 2003, a Sikh man named Gopal Singh attempted to stab Bhaniara, when he was in Ambala to appear in the court in connection with his alleged involvement with the burning of the copies of Guru Granth Sahib.
