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.