The Assyrian Democratic Organization
By Afram Barryakoub
US- Europ- AINA — A string of demonstrations have been witnessed around the world this summer. The common denominator has been the persecution of the Christian Assyrians (also called Chaldeans and Syriacs) in Iraq.
Thousands of Assyrians, inspired by the first demonstration by the community in the Swedish capital in May, have taken to the streets since then. Demonstrations have been held in Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Florida, Chicago, Canada, Australia, Sweden and France. In some countries Assyrian communities have arranged more than one demonstration.
The demonstrators from the different continents and countries have been united in one voice calling for the protection of Iraq’s indigenous population, the Christian Assyrians. Recent reports make visible an ethno-religious cleansing campaign against Iraq’s third largest minority which is at the same time the only Christian minority.
Several districts of Baghdad have already been emptied of their Christian residents after attacks on churches, kidnappings, forced conversions to Islam, imposition of Islamic taxes on non-Muslims and forced hijab dress for Christian women. The pattern of this ethno-religious cleansing in Baghdad is feared to be repeated in northern Iraq if nothing is done to protect the hundreds of thousands of Christian Assyrians living there on ancestral lands that once constituted the heartland of the Assyrian Empire.
A solution in form of a legal administrative area in the Nineveh plains in northern Iraq is currently being considered to halt the exodus of the Christian Assyrians from Iraq. The current Iraqi constitution allows for the formation of administrative areas and if it becomes real, the Nineveh plains administrative area would become the first of its kind in an Iraq still spiralling into chaos.
Already inhabited by different vulnerable minorities, both Christian and non Christian, the Nineveh plain administrative area could be the life buoy that will allow Iraq to keep its minorities alive through these difficult times.
The Nineveh plains administrative area would give the minorities living there tools to protect themselves from forced conversions, kidnappings, Islamic taxes and what could be described as a civil war in Iraq.
