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California State Assembly recognizes the Assyrian Genocide
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by Assyrian Genocide Research Center - September 11, 2019.
Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2019 at 08:19 PM UT
The Assyrian genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and the Simele massacre of 1933 have been recognized by the State of California recently. The decision was made unanimously, with both Democratic and Republican assembly members behind the resolution.
Assyrian Christians — often simply referred to as Assyrians — are an ethnic minority group whose origins lie in the Assyrian Empire, a major power in the ancient Middle East. Most of the world's 2-4 million Assyrians live around their traditional homeland, which comprises parts of northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran.
Assyrians all around the world are working for the remembrance of the genocide committed against Assyrians during the First World War in the Ottoman Empire and the Simele massacre of 1933 in Iraq.
While the world is aware of the Armenian genocide, many do not know that genocide was also committed against other ethnic groups, namely the Assyrians and Greeks, in the same region. These groups have lived from time immemorial in their ancestral lands, which were within the borders of the Ottoman Empire in 1914. The so-called “Young Turks” who deported and killed Armenians also led massacres against ethnic Assyrians and Greeks.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent Assyrians faced targeted killings, rape, abuse, destruction of homes and villages, and the razing of churches at the hands of the Ottoman Turks and their Kurdish allies.
It was resolved by the Assembly of the State of California that the Assyrian genocide of 1915, also known as the Seyfo Genocide, and the Simele massacre are recognized by the Assembly of the State of California as crimes against humanity.
The director the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center, Sabri Atman is humbled over the decision that has been made in California’s State Capitol. He stated that 49 States in The United States have recognized the Armenian genocide and “we will make a lot of effort so that all of them will include the Assyrian genocide as well.” The Assyrian Genocide and Research Center also focuses on advocating for the State of California and other states to include in their history curriculum information about the Assyrian genocide.
Amerika’nın Kaliforniya Eyaletinde Tarihi Adım
Osmanlı Türkiye’sinde gerçekleşen Asur 1915 (Süryani) soykırımı ve Irak’ın Simele şehrinde Irak ordusu tarafından 1933 yılında gerçekleşen Simele katliamını resmen tanıdı.
Seyfo Center’in uzun bir süreden beri yaptığı çok yönlü çalışmalar ürünlerini verdi. Başarıyla sürdürülen çalışma sonucu Demokrat ve Cumhuriyetçi Meclis üyeleri ile birlikte bir önerge üzerine anlaşıldı. Bu önergede Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda 1915 yılında gerçekleşen soykırım ile; 1933 yılında Irak’ın Simele şehrinde gerçekleşen katliamın lanetlenmesi ve tanınması oy birliğiyle karara bağlandı.
Amerika’nın 50 eyaletinden 49’u Ermeni soykırımını kabul etti. Daha önce hazırlanan taslaklarda sadece Ermeni soykırımından söz ediliyordu. Ancak en son Kaliforniya olmak üzere diğer 3 ayrı eyaletlerde Asur (Süryani) ve Helen soykırımları da tanınmaya başlandı.
Süryani Soykırımı ve Araştırmalar Merkezi, SEYFO Center başkanı Sabri Atman, Kaliforniya Eyalet Parlamentosu’nun, 1915 Süryani soykırımı ve Simele katliamını tanımasını “tarih bir adım olarak”, adlandırdı. Atman, “önümüzdeki süreçte Amerika’nın diğer eyaletlerinde de benzer kararlar alınması için çalışma yürüttüklerini; ayrıca Kaliforniya eyaletinde Ermeni, Süryani ve Helen soykırımının tarih kitaplarında işlenmesinin kısa bir süre sonra gerçekleşeceğine inandığını”, söyledi.
SEYFO Center www.seyfocenter.com 11 Eylül 2019, Kalifornia
Internationally acclaimed as the man who coined the term 'genocide', Raphael Lemkin was born to Jewish parents in Eastern Poland in 1901. It is ironic that it was not the persecution of his own people which led Lemkin to not only invent the phrase but to dedicate his life to fighting its reality. This struggle did not start, as might be expected, after the atrocities of the Second World War but some years before they had even begun.
Raphael Lemkin was educated at home together with his two brothers. He studied philology at the University of Lwów before deciding on a career in law. He gained a doctorate from the University of Heidelburg in Germany and in 1929 began teaching at Tachkimoni College in Warsaw. He became a public prosecutor and for the next five years represented Poland at conferences all over the world. A prominent international figure Dr Lemkin also served on the on the Polish Law Codification Committee and helped draft the criminal code of a newly independent Poland.
In 1933 Dr Lemkin was deeply disturbed by the massacre of Christian Assyrians by Iraqis. His distress was compounded by earlier memories of the slaughter of Armenians by Turks during the First World War and the international jurist began to examine these acts as crimes in an effort to deter and prevent them. He presented his first proposal to outlaw such 'acts of barbarism' to the Legal Council of the League of Nations in Madrid the same year. However, the proposal failed and his work incurred the disapproval of the Polish government, which was at the time pursuing a policy of conciliation with Nazi Germany. He was forced to retire from his public position in 1934. Undeterred Dr Lemkin continued his work in private law practice until the German invasion of Poland in 1939 led him to experience at first hand the very acts that he was working to prevent. (Read more...)
Dr. Raphael Lemkin Dr. Raphael Lemkin's Notes on Genocide A 1933 Proposal to Make Extermination of People a Crime
“WHEREAS, In August 1933, Raphael Lemkin learned the news of the massacre in Simele, in which 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts of modern day Iraq were attacked by the nascent Iraqi Army and irregular Kurdish and Arab forces. Approximately 6,000 Assyrians were brutally murdered. Lemkin cited the Simele massacre that was organized by the Iraqi Army alongside the systematic genocide of Armenians organized by the Ottoman Turks and the Holocaust when Lemkin and other jurists developed the legal concept of “genocide”; and”
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