Religious violence is a term that covers all phenomena where religion, in any of its forms, is either the subject or object of inividual or collective violent behaviour. Concretely, it covers both violence by religiously motivated individuals or religious institutions of any kind, of the same religion, a different sect, or secular targets. The other case is of violence of any kind against objects that are explicitly religious (such as religious institutions, the persecution of people on the basis of their religion, religious buildings or sites).