The previous post focuses on theme of politically-minded persecutions such as happened in the McCarthy era. In these cases, people are persecuted for being associated with a real problem. McCarthyism falls under this category because the people being persecuted had some connection, however tenuous, to communism, which could fairly have been seen as a threat in those days.
However, I would argue that it is at least important to think about another theme mentioned in the link: that of using "political persecution as a tool for deflecting attention away from difficult problem areas." In other words, sometimes people who really have nothing to do with a particular problem end up being persecuted.
Some examples of this could be:
Hitler's persecution of the Jews. They had nothing to do with Germany's problems but were used as scapegoats -- someone to blame for Germany's problems.
Possibly, China's persecution of Tibetans. This can be seen as an attempt to draw attention away from real quality of life issues faced by the mass of Chinese people.
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