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Assyrian Universal
Alliance
Australia
Chapter
Member: Unrepresented
Nations & Peoples Organization (UNPO)
PRESS RELEASE
Sydney - August 25, 2008
Protest against Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo)
on the highest Mountains in New South Wales
On Sunday 24 August 2008, over a hundred people from Sydney gathered
in a show of protest against the mass slaughter of Assyrian people
by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
100 km outside
Sydney on top of the Blue Mountains at Katoomba, a large number of
black and red balloons were released with
shouted slogans against the genocide committed by the Ottomans.
Among the participants there were many young and elderly people.
Australians and tourists at the location also observed the event and
asked for copies of our information booklets on the Assyrian
genocide.
The
protest had been organized by Babylon Cultural Association and the
Assyrian Universal Alliance upon the request of the Assyrian scholar
from Sweden, Mr. Sabri Atman, Chairman of Seyfo Center. Mr. Atman
was invited by the Assyrian Universal Alliance-Australian Chapter to
hold a series of seminars in Sydney and Melbourne on the Assyrian
Genocide and was a guest speaker in the Genocide Conference
organized by the Alliance at New South Wales parliament House on 7
August 2008.
This event was held
as part of the International Campaign being run by the Seyfo Centre
to put pressure on the government of Turkey to officially
acknowledge the Assyrian Genocide and apologise for the Turkish
atrocities committed in 1915 against the Assyrian nation. Over two
third of the Assyrian population in Turkey were murdered by the
Young Turks in collaboration with Kurdish
clans. The Assyrian people were systematically subjected to
massacres, deportations, expropriation, torture, pillage and
starvation, alongside with their Armenian and Greek brethren.
Mr. Sabri Atman
gave a fevered address at the gathering, reminding all that the
Assyrian victims of genocide were slaughtered simply because of
their Christian religion and Assyrian ethnicity. He promised the
souls of our martyrs that this nation will not forget them and will
do all it can to pressure the Turkish government to acknowledge
their crime against humanity. He was followed by Mr. Hermiz Shahen,
Secretary of the Assyrian Universal Alliance-Australian Chapter, who
spoke about the victims of both 1915 and 1933.
Mr. Shahen
emphasized that the genocide committed in 1933 was in response to
Assyrians demands that their national rights be asserted similar to
that of other Iraqi nationalities. Of the
resulting crime committed by the Iraqi government, Mr. Shahen said
“We are gathered here on the highest mountain in NSW to promise the
souls of our martyrs that the children of Assyria will not forget
their sacrifice for the preservation of national culture and
heritage.” The gathering then released hundreds of balloons in to
the sky with pride and dignity.
PO Box 34, Fairfield
NSW 1860 Australia.
Fax: (02) 9610 2499.
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