Colloquially, genocide can be referred to as a number of crimes that cannot be classified under the legal definition of genocide
. Thus, the mass Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia in the 1970s, which claimed more than a million lives, are often called genocide, but they cannot qualify as one ethnic Khmer persecuting and killing other ethnic Khmer based on their social or political affiliation.
On the other hand, the persecution of ethnic Vietnamese and Muslims by the Khmer Rouge could be considered genocide, because the Khmer Rouge specifically attempted to destroy these groups, precisely because of their ethnic and religious characteristics.
