Dehumanization in the context of "Religious persecution"

The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the systematic mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement of between 95% and 97% of the Circassian people during the final stages of the Russian invasion of Circassia in the 19th century. It resulted in the deaths of between 1,000,000 and 1.5 million and the destruction of Circassia, which was then annexed by the Russian Empire. Those planned for extermination were mainly the Circassians, who are predominantly Muslims, but other ethnic groups in the Caucasus were also affected, as part of the Caucasian War. The Imperial Russian Army also impaled their victims and tore open the bellies of pregnant women to intimidate the Circassians and devastate their morale. Many Russian generals, such as Grigory Zass, described the Circassians as "subhuman filth" and a "lowly race" to justify and glorify their wholesale slaughter and their use as human test subjects in unethical scientific experiments. Russian soldiers were also permitted to rape Circassian women.

The native Circassian population was largely decimated or expelled to the Ottoman Empire. Only those who accepted Russification and made agreements with Russian troops, were spared. Starvation was used as a tool of war against Circassian villages, many of which were subsequently burned down. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy reported that Russian soldiers attacked village houses at night. British diplomat Gifford Palgrave, stated that "their only crime was not being Russian." Seeking military intervention against Russia, Circassian officials sent "A Petition from Circassian leaders to Her Majesty Queen Victoria" in 1864, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to solicit aid from the British Empire. That same year, the Imperial Russian Army launched a campaign of mass deportation of Circassia's surviving population. By 1867, a large portion of the Circassians were expelled. Many died from epidemics or starvation. Some were reportedly eaten by dogs after their death, while others died when their ships sank during storms.

Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to notions and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group to varying degrees.

It is a form of racial prejudice, based on ethnic origin or region of origin. It can be accompanied by the systematic oppression of the ethnic minority group. Unlike under assimilationism, the ethnicity is often in physical danger (confrontations, dehumanization, pogroms, lynchings, massacres), and can be targeted by apartheid, general hostility or property vandalism. In special cases forced labour, deportation, revocation of human rights, and property looting.

In sociology, the term rationalization was coined by Max Weber, a German sociologist, jurist, and economist. Rationalization (or rationalisation) is the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with concepts based on rationality and reason. The term rational is seen in the context of people, their expressions, and or their actions. This term can be applied to people who can perform speech or in general any action, in addition to the views of rationality within people it can be seen in the perspective of something such as a worldview or perspective (idea). For example, the implementation of bureaucracies in government is a kind of rationalization, as is the construction of high-efficiency living spaces in architecture and urban planning. A potential reason as to why rationalization of a culture may take place in the modern era is the process of globalization. Countries are becoming increasingly interlinked, and with the rise of technology, it is easier for countries to influence each other through social networking, the media and politics. An example of rationalization in place would be the case of witch doctors in certain parts of Africa. Whilst many locals view them as an important part of their culture and traditions, development initiatives and aid workers have tried to rationalize the practice in order to educate the local people in modern medicine and practice.

Many sociologists, critical theorists and contemporary philosophers have argued that rationalization, falsely assumed as progress, has had a negative and dehumanizing effect on society, moving modernity away from the central tenets of Enlightenment. The founders of sociology had critical reaction to rationalization:

Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person solely as an object of sexual desire (a sex object). Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity. Objectification is most commonly examined at the level of a society (sociology), but can also refer to the behavior of individuals (psychology), and is a type of dehumanization.

Although both men and women can be sexually objectified, the concept is mainly associated with the objectification of women, and is an important idea in many feminist theories, and psychological theories derived from them. Many feminists argue that sexual objectification of girls and women contributes to gender inequality, and many psychologists associate objectification with a range of physical and mental health risks in women. Research suggests that the psychological effects of objectification of men are similar to those of women, leading to negative body image among men. The concept of sexual objectification is controversial, and some feminists and psychologists have argued that at least some degree of objectification is a normal part of human sexuality.

Anti-Slavic sentiment, also called anti-Slavic racism or Slavophobia, refers to different types of negative attitudes, prejudices, collective hatred or animosity, stereotypes, discrimination, and violence (economic, physical, political, psychological, verbal, etc.) directed at one or more ethnic groups of Slavic peoples. Accompanying racism and xenophobia, the most common manifestation of anti-Slavic sentiment throughout history has been the assertion that some Slavs are inferior to other peoples.

Anti-Slavic sentiment reached its highest point during World War II, when Nazi Germany and its collaborators classified most of the Slavs, especially the Belarusians, Croats, Czechs, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, as "subhumans" (Untermenschen) and perpetrated a systematic genocide against them, murdering millions of Slavs through the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan.

Infrahumanisation (or infrahumanization) is the tacitly held belief that one's ingroup is more human than an outgroup, which is less human. It can also be subjectively defined as a result of group comparison that links with positive ingroup bias when the ingroup is seen as fully human in comparison to an outgroup that is viewed as lacking humanness. The term was coined by Jacques-Philippe Leyens and colleagues in the early 2000s to distinguish what they argue to be an everyday phenomenon from dehumanisation (denial of humanness) associated with extreme intergroup violence such as genocide. According to Leyens and colleagues, infrahumanisation arises when people view their ingroup and outgroup as essentially different (different in essence) and accordingly reserve the "human essence" for the ingroup and deny it to the outgroup. Whether a "subhuman" classification means "human but inferior" or "not human at all" may be academic, as in practice it corresponds to prejudice regardless (for example, compare the Nazi idea of the Untermensch).

The belief that the outgroup is less human than the ingroup is seldom consciously endorsed by individuals and instead is reflected in the way people tacitly think about the outgroup. Researchers have typically investigated infrahumanisation by looking at the types of emotions people believe ingroup and outgroup members possess. Some emotions are considered unique to humans (e.g., love, regret, nostalgia), whereas others are viewed as common to both humans and animals (e.g., joy, anger, sadness). In a series of studies, Leyens and colleagues have widely replicated the finding that people attribute uniquely human emotions to the ingroup, but not the outgroup. According to infrahumanisation theory, the denial of uniquely human emotions to the outgroup is reflective of the belief that they are less human than the ingroup.