SR 102

WHEREAS, Assyrians, an ethnic minority group, are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia and trace their origins to one of the earliest human civilizations, with a history that spans over 7,000 years, including in what is today Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria; and

WHEREAS, California has been home to one of the largest Assyrian American populations in the United States for well over a century; and

WHEREAS, Between 1914 and 1923, Assyrians suffered a genocide inflicted by the Ottoman Empire; during this time, over 300,000 Assyrian men, women, and children were murdered by methods that included mass executions, death marches, torture, and starvation; and

WHEREAS, During the Assyrian Genocide, also known as the Seyfo Genocide, the Ottoman Turks and their allies also systematically raped and enslaved Assyrian women and girls, forced the Assyrians from their ancestral lands, and pillaged and destroyed their communities; and

WHEREAS, The killings of over 2,000,000 Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other religious minority populations represented the culmination of a series of violent persecutions dating back to the late 1800s; and

WHEREAS, The year 2022 marks the 107th anniversary of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides; these genocides were part of the planned eradication of those indigenous communities by the Ottoman Turkish Empire; yet, to this day, Turkey has still not recognized these genocides; and

WHEREAS, August 7, 1933, is recognized by the International Association of Genocide Scholars as the date on which as many as 6,000 Assyrians were killed at the orders of the Iraqi government in an event known as the Simele Massacre; this massacre continued the legacy of persecution exemplified by the Genocide of 1915; and

WHEREAS, The genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks and the Simele Massacre of 1933 both inspired Raphael Lemkin to coin the term genocide and initiate the Genocide Convention in the 1940s; and

WHEREAS, August 7th, globally observed by the Assyrian community, is in remembrance of the Simele Massacre, the Genocide of 1915, and all persecution the Assyrian people have faced as a result of their distinct and ancient ethnic and religious identity; and

WHEREAS, The persecution against Assyrians continues until this day in their ancestral homeland, where they are continually targeted for persecution by state and nonstate actors such as the Republic of Turkey, the Republic of Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL); and

WHEREAS, The denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide; this denial maintains impunity for the perpetrators of these atrocities and demonstrably paves the way for future genocides; and

WHEREAS, Assyrian organizations like the Assyrian American Association of Southern California have served and advanced the Assyrian American community in a diverse spectrum of areas such as education, advocacy, cultural and linguistic identity, youth services, and many other areas; and

WHEREAS, The resilience and endurance of the Assyrian people, despite being a nation of survivors of genocide and persecution that continue to be perpetuated to this day, is commendable and praiseworthy; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, That the Senate recognizes the 89th anniversary of the Simele Massacre of 1933 as a reprehensible crime against humanity and honors the memory of the thousands of Assyrians who were murdered during the Genocide of 1915 and the Simele Massacre of 1933; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.