(AINA) -- The use of the term "minority" to describe Assyrians in Turkey and later in Iraq is deeply tied to the political and nationalist agendas of these nations, particularly in the 20th century. While Assyrians are undoubtedly the indigenous people of the land of the two rivers (Mesopotamia), the term "minority" was used to undermine their presence, deny their historical rights, and...
A new episode of anti-Christian violence is fuelling concerns in a community still reeling from the massacre at a Damascus church, and struggling to "heal the wounds" caused by years of war, poverty, and the rise of radical Islamic groups.
Iraq's minorities, including Christian Chaldean--Syriac--Assyrian, Yezidis, and others, continue to face systematic marginalization and exclusion. They are denied equal rights, excluded from government representation, and pushed out of state jobs, the military, and security services.
For years, Turkish authorities have pledged to protect the rights of minorities, including the Syriac (Aramean--Assyrian--Chaldean) community, and to safeguard their places of worship while punishing those who violate them. Yet recent incidents tell a different story.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent interview with Patrick Bet-David on August 26 declared that Israel had recognised the Armenian genocide. "I think we have. I think the Knesset passed a resolution to that effect... I just did." As expected, his statement went viral. But it was not accurate.
In a striking statement that has reignited debate over the Sayfo Genocide against Armenians, Syriacs (Arameans-Chaldeans-Assyrians), and Greeks in 1915 by the hands of Ottoman Turks and Kurds, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country has reaped no tangible benefits from the growing international recognition of the tragedy.
On an otherwise quiet day in a small village in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, visitors encircle a small plot almost indistinguishable from the dust-brown earth around it, solemn and still. At the base of a mound of sand, a jagged slab of rock juts out of the ground, featuring the hand-painted date "1933" above the pale blue, four-pointed star of the modern Assyrian flag.
For over a century, the Assyrian people--an ancient indigenous community rooted in the heartlands of Mesopotamia (modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria)--have endured a haunting legacy of violence, displacement, and erasure. Their history is not marked by a single tragedy, but by a series of genocidal campaigns that have spanned through generations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, for the first time, publicly recognised the genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in the early 20th century. Speaking during an interview on Tuesday with American podcaster Patrick Bet-David, Netanyahu was asked why Israel had yet to recognise these atrocities.
Parishioners from six churches in Suwayda, Syria, have been displaced in recent weeks, underscoring the mounting humanitarian crisis in the governorate, according to Greek (Rûm) Catholic Father Tony Boutros, pastor of Saint Philip's Church. The situation reflects the broader fragility and complexity of life in Suwayda, where security and humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating.
When U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack recently suggested that the country may need to explore alternatives to an overly centralized state, his remarks reverberated beyond the halls of Daramsuq (Damascus).
LANSING, Michigan, USA -- The US city of Detroit, Michigan, is home to the world's largest concentrated Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian diaspora, numbering more than 160,000 people. On August 21, the Michigan House of Representatives approved legislation officially designating May as Chaldean American Month.
(AINA) -- There were three Assyrian empires in BC times. The first was from 2000 BC to 1750 BC; the second was from 1365 BC to 1076 BC; the third and most famous and influential was called the Neo-Assyrian Empire, ruling from 911 BC to 609 BC. The following video from the History Time youtube channel presents the history of the neo-Assyrian empire. ...
(AINA) -- The following report by CBN addresses the issue of "protection" of Assyrians by the Kurdish regional government in north Iraq. ...
(AINA) -- The Assyrian Arts Institute (AAI) is an organization founded by Nora Betyousef Lacey in 2017 and claims to support Assyrian arts. AAI has sponsored a few events since its founding, including an Assyrian women's choir.
(AINA) -- On July 12 Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid repealed the decree recognizing the appointment of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and which appointed him to the office of the waqf (وقف), the endowment which oversees all church property. The details of the events leading up to this action are exhaustively covered in this report by MEMRI.
(AINA) -- The use of the term "minority" to describe Assyrians in Turkey and later in Iraq is deeply tied to the political and nationalist agendas of these nations, particularly in the 20th century. While Assyrians are undoubtedly the indigenous people of the land of the two rivers (Mesopotamia), the term "minority" was used to undermine their presence, deny their historical rights, and...
(AINA) -- 'Syria is free'; thus screamed the Syrians as they celebrated the tumbling down of the criminal regime during a whole week. Thousands, even millions, of Syrians strolled the streets of the entire major cities of Syria. They were from all societal segments, strata, trends, genders, religious beliefs and non-religious ones, convictions, sects, confessions, parties, and orientations.
What if I told you that the core principles driving blockchain technology were actually explored over 5,000 years ago? Not in Silicon Valley boardrooms, but in the dusty archives of ancient Mesopotamia. Sounds unlikely, so let me explain how it worked.
Perceptions of ancient Mesopotamia -- the birthplace of the world's first civilisations, which emerged more than 4,000 years ago across what is now Iraq -- are dominated by stories of divine kings, their monumental stepped ziggurats, and vast libraries brimming with forgotten knowledge.