Sydney -- This year's Assyrian Martyrs Day in Australia will be held at the New South Wales Parliament on Wednesday August 6, the Assyrian National Council of Australia (ANCA) and the Young Assyrians announced. Keynote speaker is Dr. Anahit Khosroeva who will deliver a lecture on "Memory and Marginalization: The Assyrian Genocide in Historical and Political Context."

Talking to SBS Assyrian, ANCA President Hermiz Shahen stressed the importance for all Assyrians (Chaldeans-Syriacs-Arameans) to commemorate their martyrs on this dedicated day, so they continue to be part of our contemporary lives. It is the duty of the Assyrian nation, of all of us, to respect Assyrian Remembrance Day as a national holiday and participate.

Related: The 1933 Massacre of Assyrians in Simmele, Iraq

The Labor Party and the Liberal Party will send representatives to the commemoration.

In the same week, on Sunday August 10, commemorative prayers with wreath laying will be held at the Assyrian Genocide Memorial in Bonnyrigg, New South Wales. The Assyrian memorial statue, dedicated by the Assyrian Universal Alliance and the Assyrian community in Australia, remembers and honors the martyrs of the Sayfo Genocide in World War (1914-1918) at the hand of the Ottoman authorities and allied Kurdish tribes, the Simele Massacre of 1933 at the hands of the Iraqi army, and onwards.