A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloquial usage, the term can also refer to any person who suffers a significant consequence in protest or support of a cause.
Sculpture at Mehdiana Sahib of the execution of Banda Singh Bahadur by Mughals in 1716
Martyrdom of the seven Hebrew brothers, Attavante degli Attavanti, Vatican Library
From the gallery of 20th century martyrs at Westminster Abbey—l. to r. Mother Elizabeth of Russia, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Óscar Romero and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Illustration of Christian martyrs burned at the stake by Ranavalona I in Madagascar
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, imprisonment, internment, fear or pain are all factors that may establish persecution, but not all suffering will necessarily establish persecution. The threshold of severity has been a source of much debate.
Members of the right-wing Lapua Movement assault a former Red officer and the publisher of the communist newspaper at the Vaasa riot on June 4, 1930, in Vaasa, Finland.
A Christian Dirce, by Henryk Siemiradzki. A Christian woman is martyred under Nero in this re-enactment of the myth of Dirce (painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1897, National Museum, Warsaw).
Qalb Loze: in June 2015, Druze were massacred there by the jihadist Nusra Front.
Kaunas pogrom in German-occupied Lithuania, June 1941
