Assyrian independence movement

Assyrians, including the leader of the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Romeo Hakkari, protested the Iraqi parliament's decision and stated "We do not want to be part of the possible Sunni (Arab) autonomous region in Iraq".

Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution.

[20] In 1914, Young Turks with the aid of the Kurds and other Muslim ethnic groups, began to systemically target the ancient indigenous Christian communities of Asia Minor, primarily composed of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and to a small degree Georgians.

In the beginning, key Assyrian nationalist leaders and religious figures were wiped out of communities, followed by the systematic massacre and ethnic cleansing by the Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Chechens and Circassians of hundreds of thousands of unarmed men, women and children.

In April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its main tribal chiefs of Bit-Jilu, Bit-Bazi, Bit-Tyari, Bit-Tkhuma, Bit-Shamasha, Bit-Eshtazin, Bit-Nochiya and Bit-Diz "took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians and British.

[28] The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of JILU, Baz, Tyari, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwari, Amadia and Seert to be massacred, including women, children and the elderly.

Churches and monasteries were destroyed or converted into Mosques, livestock and possessions were stolen by the Turks and Turkmens, who then occupied the emptied Assyrian towns, villages and farmsteads.

[32] Also in April, Turkmen and Turkish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men, among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest.

There they carried out mass infanticide, leading the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss.

There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss, according to Joseph Naayem.

[35] In late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilians in at least 30 villages.

On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak, assassinated Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin, one of the Assyrians leaders at that time.

The Russians discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, mostly naked and mutilated, some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces.

[60] In early August 1933, the chiefs of the Tkhuma Tribe and the Tiyari led more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria in crossing the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq, where their wives and children had remained.

[69] The massacre would eventually lead to 15,000 Assyrians leaving the Nineveh Plains for neighboring French Mandate of Syria, and create 35 new villages on the banks of the Khabur River.

Joel E. Werda in his petition concluded; We have the most conclusive proofs to show that the Assyrians were urged by the official representatives of Great Britain, France and Russia, to enter into the war on the side of the Allies ... with the most solemn promises of being given a free state.

[75]Great Britain and the U.S. delegates denied this petition, explaining that the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had strong reservations concerning any plans to divide Turkey.

Turkey lost its appeal to win Mosul back based on Great Britain's claims that the region would be saved for the future settlement of the Kurdish and Assyrian people, but no final agreement was reached.

[78] Article 39 of the treaty states:[79] There will be no official restriction on any Turkish citizen's right to use any language he wishes, whether in private, in commercial dealings, in matter of religion, in print or at a public gathering.

Worth mentioning here that Sir Humphrys was accused by his own fellow British officials to fabricate lies in regards to the Iraqi government's sentiments about the Assyrians.

The Mandate Commission gave its recommendations, stating that they are concerned about the Christians, and accordingly, average people were given the right to submit any petitions to the League of Nations, directly, in the future.

Mar Eshai Shimum was quoted in the meeting: If the (British) mandate is lifted without effective guarantees for our protection in the future, our extermination would follow.After the establishment of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932, an Assyrian uprising followed through the following year, anyone refusing to sign a declaration of loyalty to King Faisal and agreeing not to thwart the scheme of the League of Nations for the settlement of the Assyrians, was deported by the order of the government on August 18, 1933, and deprived of Iraqi nationality.

The Battle of Habbaniya is well described in the book, The Golden Carpet by Somerset de Chair, a British intelligence officer serving in Iraq during World War II.

Amin al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد أمين الحسيني 1895/1897 – July 4, 1974), was the choice of the Nazis and Italian fascists to make inroads into the Middle East, including Iraq.

In 1937, wanted by the British, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in Lebanon, Iraq, Italy and finally Nazi Germany where he met Adolf Hitler in 1941.

The 1972 proclamation was reversed and Hussein began a strict campaign of Arabization on any non-Arabs in Iraq, including Assyrians as well as other groups such as Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, and Armenians.

Its officials say that while members of the ADM also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future.

A meeting was organized by the Labour MP Stephen Pound, in conjunction with the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human-rights group.

[95] On May 9, 2007, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV dispatched a letter to President George W. Bush pleading for immediate protection of the Christians of Iraq.

[99] In September 2016, a bipartisan resolution was introduced into the US House of Representatives to support the creation of a permanent safe haven for persecuted minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Turkmen, that would be centered on the traditional Assyrian homeland in the Nineveh Plain.