Being persecuted because of your faith can mean being pesecuted specifically on behalf of your beliefs. That does of course happen. "Kill the blasphemer!"

Equally it can happen because as an adherent of a religion you are identified as one of a suspect minority. As Musket says this can be acerbated because of the actions of people seen as your co-religionists - for example Americans with drones, Muslims or Irish Catholics with bombs.

In both cases it is likely to be the case that if you abandon your religious beliefs and your religious practice, you will no longer be a target of persecution, unless this is seen as not genuine.

That is why calling it religious persecution is perfectly appropriate. That is the third or fourth time I have explained this elementary truth, Musket, but you seem unable to grasp it. I rather suspect this may well continue to be the case.

As for Musket's interpretation of what Keith intended in that comment about the contrast between immigrating and being exiled, and its relation in both cases to the presence of persecution,, I note that Keith has several times explained what he said there, and it coincides with what appears to me to be the obvious meaning.