The persecution of Catholics in Northern Ireland led to over a decade of bloody warfare not so long ago - that persecution has been a part of life for the minority third since 1922.
The 'Troubles' actually started when Civil Rights marches were deliberately directed by police through mobs of stone-throwing Loyalists.
Members of my family were driven out of Derry in the 1950s after having their house burned around their ears in one of the regular sectarian bloodlettings.
Even today, in still Catholic Ireland, if I wished for a child of mine to receive a non-denominational education, I would have to drive 20 miles to the nearest school - permanently full, so you'd better make that 40 miles.
We've been through discussions on pregnancy termination to the point of allowing women to die rather than being given life-saving operations, or the State being implicated in continuing to cover up facts about clerical child abuse.
Much of the violence against Muslims and Roma taking place in Europe today is condoned or not acted on by the authorities - illicit maybe, ignored certainly - they coined the phrase 'institutional racism/culturalism' to cover it when it was revealed in Britain.
None of this would, I am sure, register on your sliding scale of persecution, of course.
The disturbing rise of fundamentalism in the world today is a continuation of what has always happened when religion has combined with politics, it's only the ingredients of that that are different.
On the subject of this thread, I would suggest that the persecution of Muslims by the Israeli regime, with its massacres, regular military incursions, checkpoints and daily humiliation must be a front-runner in the Religious Persecution stakes, but I have no doubt that you regard that as Antisemitism on my part.
As far as I am concern, they call all go to their own chosen Hell in their own particular handcart.
Jim Carroll