Iraqi Assyrians (, , ) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. They are defined as Assyrians residing in the country of Iraq, or members of the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iran, Turkey and Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora elsewhere. A significant number have emigrated to the United States, notably to the Detroit"Arab, Chaldean, and Middle Eastern Children and Families in the Tri-County Area." (Archive) From a Child's Perspective: Detroit Metropolitan Census 2000 Fact Sheets Series. Wayne State University. Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2004. p. 2/32. Retrieved on November 8, 2013. and Chicago; sizeable communities are also found in Sydney, Australia and Södertälje, Sweden.
Background Ancient history
The Assyrians are typically Syriac-speaking Christians who claim descent from Ancient Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia.
Scholars have said that Kurds also fought against the Assyrian Christians because they feared that Armenians or their European allies could take control of the area. Both Arabs and Kurds thought of the Assyrians as foreigners and as allies of colonial Britain.Margins of empire. S.l.: Stanford University Press., and https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline """"THE SIMELE MASSACRE AS A CAUSE OF IRAQI NATIONALISM: HOW AN ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE CREATED IRAQI MARTIAL NATIONALISM """"Eric Davis, Memories of State (Los Angeles: University of California Press 2005): 62; Records of Iraq, v. 7, Consul Mon ypenny to Mr. Ogilvie- Forbes, 21 Aug. 1933, 580. Cited https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file ? accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline
Persecution of Assyrians has a long and bitter history. In 1895, in Diyarbakır, Kurdish and Turkish militia began attacking Christians, plundering Assyrian villages. In 1915, Kurds and Turks plundered villages, about 7000 Assyrians were killed. In 1915, Turkish troops "with Kurdish detachments" committed mass slaughters of Assyrians in Persia. In the Assyrian village of Haftvan almost 1000 people were beheaded.The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies Richard G. Hovannisian (2011).
In 1894, the French diplomat Paul Cambon described the creation of Kurdish Hamidies regiments as "the official organization for pillage at the expense of Armenian Christians". In these places "the system of persecutions and extorsions became intolerable to populations who had become accustomed to their slavery". According to Cambon, the Porte refused reforms and persisted in "maintaining a veritable regime of terror, arrests, assassinations and rape.".Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 116-18 In 1924, the Muslim Kurds around Sheik Said "rose in revolt against the "atheist government of Ankara" and demanded autonomy, the restoration of religious laws and of the sultanate".Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 40 In 1932, Iraqi forces commanded by Kurdish general Bakr Sidki killed 600 Assyrians at Simel, near Mosul. Kurds committed the slaughter "in which 65 Nestorian villages in northern Iraq were plundered and burned down, priests were tortured and Christians were forced to renounce their religion while others in Dohuk were deported and about a 100 were shot".Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 188 In 1843, Nestorians in the Tauris region refused to pay Kurds the jizya, and "by way of reprisal 4350 Nestroians were slaughtered, about 400 women and children were reduced to slavery and all their houses and churches destroyed".Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. see in hommaire de hell, voyage en turquie 2:22-24, where it is recounted Historians have noted that in "Kurdistan Jews, Nestorians and Armenians were subject to tallage and corvees at whim of authorities".
Historians have noted that Bedir Khan Beg (also known as Bedirhan) called the Kurdish Muslims to fight a sacred war against the Assyrians and Armenians, and ordered to massacre and annihilate them. Kurdish writers have recounted that "the Kurdish troops attacked the Assyrians and started slaughters. Consequently, a few Assyrians were killed, their villages were destroyed and set into fire... For the second time, in 1846, the Assyrians residing at the Thuma region have been massacred...." British writer William Eagleton said that "in 1843 and 1846, Bedirhan started a massacre and booting campaign against the Christian Assyrians (Nestorians) he was anxious about whose getting stronger and independent through becoming able to rule themselves. It was intolerable for Bedirhan to see the Assyrians living on his own territories getting stronger. Thus he killed ten thousand Assyrians. Even though Bedirhan was a feudal tribal leader, he was expressing the aspirations of Kurdish nationalism." Kurdish and Arab attacks on Assyrians continued, culminating in the August 1933 Simele massacres. About 3000 Assyrians were killed in that single month alone.
Beginning in August 1933, Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish militia killed thousands of Assyrians in Simele (Iraq). The massacre had a big influence on Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who coined the word "genocide. The Simmele Massacre is also commemorated yearly with the official Assyrian Martyrs Day on 7 August. The massacre was carried out by the Iraqi Army, led by Kurdish General Bakir Sidqi, and Kurdish and Arab irregulars. There were about 3,000 victims of the massacre.
History
British Mandate
Independent Kingdom of Iraq
During July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back by the French. While King Faisal had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the "Assyrian problem". This policy was implemented by an Iraqi-Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi. After engaging in several unsuccessful clashes with armed Assyrian tribesmen, on 11 August 1933, Sidqi permitted his men to attack and kill about 3,000 unarmed Assyrian civilian villagers, including women, children and the elderly, at the Assyrian villages of Sumail (Simele) district, and later at Suryia. Having scapegoated the Assyrians as dangerous national traitors, this massacre of unarmed civilians became a symbol of national pride, and enhanced Sidqi's prestige. The British, though represented by a powerful military presence as provided by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, failed to intervene or allow the well-disciplined Assyrian Levies under their command to do so, and indeed helped whitewash the event at the League of Nations.
The Assyrian repression marked the entrance of the military into Iraqi politics, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription.
Republic of Iraq In the early 1970s, the secularist Ba'ath regime initially tried to change the suppression of Assyrians in Iraq through different laws that were passed. On 20 February 1972, the government passed the law to recognize the cultural rights of Assyrians by allowing Aramaic be taught schools in which the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Aramaic was also to be taught at intermediate and secondary schools in which the majority of students spoke that language in addition to Arabic, but it never happened. Special Assyrian programs were to be broadcast on public radio and television and three Syriac-language magazines were planned to be published in the capital. An Association of Syriac-Speaking Authors and Writers had also been established.
The bill turned out to be a failure. The radio stations created as the result of this decree were closed after a few months. While the two magazines were allowed to be published, only 10 percent of their material was in Aramaic. No school was allowed to teach in Aramaic either.
Pre-invasion Iraq
Reports from various sources "indicate a better human rights situation overall in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Northern Iraq than exists elsewhere in the country" (AI 2000, 135; U.K. Immigration & Nationality Directorate Sept. 1999; USDOS 25 Feb. 2000) Also, according to the reports, "while freedom of speech, religion, movement, and press are strongly restricted throughout Iraq, these freedoms do exist to a certain extent in parts of the Kurd-controlled area "(USDOS 25 Feb. 2000). However, reports regarding isolated human rights abuses continued in 1999. The US State government reported that in 1999 Assyrian Christian Helena Aloun Sawa was murdered, and according to AINA, "the murder resembles a well-established pattern of complicity by Kurdish authorities in attacks against Assyrian Christians in the north". The murder was investigated by a commission appointed by the KDP but no results of the investigation were reported by year's end. There were also incidents of mob violence by Muslims against Christians in northern Iraq. Christian Assyrians were also targeted in a series of bombings in Erbil in 1998 to 1999, and Assyrian groups have criticized the KRG for the lack of investigation. According to the AINA, the KDP blockaded Assyrian villages in 1999 and "later entered the villages and beat villagers". However, after invervention by the International Committee of the Red Cross the KDP left the villages again.
According to the UK Immigration & Nationality Directorate "despite Tariq Aziz's lofty position in the Baghdad regime, Christians have little political influence in the Ba'ath government" (Sept. 1999).
Education in any language other than Arabic and Kurdish was prohibited by the government in Baghdad. Therefore, Assyrians were not permitted to attend classes in Syriac. In the Kurdish-controlled northern areas, classes in Syriac have been permitted since 1991. However, according to some Assyrian sources "regional Kurdish authorities refused to allow the classes to begin." However, details of this practice were not available, and Kurdish authorities denied the accusations. In 1999, the Kurdistan Observer claimed that "the Central Government had warned the administration in the Kurdish region against allowing Turkoman, Assyrian, or Yazidi minority schools."
According to the UK Immigration & Nationality Directorate, "the Central Government has engaged various abuses against the Assyrian Christians, and has often suspected them of 'collaborating' with Kurds" (Sept. 1999). According to a report by The World Directory of Minorities "Assyrians were unable to avoid the Kurdish conflict. As with the Kurds, some supported the government, others allied themselves with the Kurdish nationalist movement" (Minority Rights Group International 1997, 346).
Post-invasion Iraq After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq by US and its allies, the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence infrastructure of former President Saddam Hussein and began a process of "de-Baathification". This process became an object of controversy, cited by some critics as the biggest American mistake made in the immediate aftermath of the Invasion of Iraq, and as one of the main causes in the deteriorating security situation throughout Iraq.Henderson & Tucker, p. 19. Social unrest and chaos resulted in the unprovoked persecution of Assyrians in Iraq mostly by Islamic extremists (both Shia and Sunni) and Kurdish nationalists (ex. Dohuk Riots of 2011 aimed at Assyrians & Yazidis).