European Parliament Conference On The Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo)

On March, 26^th, 2007 a conference on the Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo) was held in the European Parliament in Brussels. Under the theme “Genocide, Denial and the Right for Recognition” several specialists had been invited to speak on the Seyfo and its coherence to nowadays in terms of Turkey’s request for membership in the European Union.

Mrs. Eva-Britt Svensson of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, who organized along with the SEYFO Center the conference, stressed in her talk that her party struggles in its work to put pressure on Turkey to recognize the genocide perpetrated against the Assyrians in 1915 in order to stop further discriminations according to the Copenhague Criteria. Accordingly, the EP can not allow to accept a potential member not meeting the set measures.

Additionally, the head of the SEYFO Center, Mr. Sabri Atman started his talk with the murder of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink as an example for recent attacks against minorities living in Turkey. In saying “Turkey is afraid of its past”, he summed up that treatment and challenged the Turkish state to take the ethnic diversity within the own country as a key for access into the EU.

The Swedish Professor David Gaunt presented in his speech the historic events, which he has collected and presents in his book “Massacres, Resistance, Protectors”, surrounding the Assyrian Genocide.

Mr. Markus Ferber, a German politician and member of the EP talked on the current political discussion towards the negotiation with Turkey. He emphasized that the recognition of the genocide against the Assyrian people has to be set as admission criteria by the European Union due to ensure the cultural diversity of which Europe and its identity consists of. Herewith he pointed out that the Treaty of Lausanne does not define clearly the treatment towards the non-Muslims in Turkey. Therefore the EP has to urge the Turkish government to set precise remarks on the rights of the Assyrians and all other minorities in the country and put them into practice according to the European standards.    

Eventually, Mr. Willy Faturé, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, focused in his speech on the debate about the genocide issue in the Belgian scene. By saying “that the Armenian Genocide and Assyrian Genocide are two sides of the same coin and can not be separated from each other. They are the same genocide,” he recommended to the Assyrian organizations amongst the other nations to struggle together for the recognition to prohibit  racism and negationism within the EU.

After having heard the different views on Turkey’s position towards the Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo) and thus the behavior towards the Christians living in Turkey, the moderator of the conference Miss Nicme Seven presented a letter of the Turkish Embassy addressed to Mr. Ferber. The Ambassador of the Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the European Union firstly claimed in that letter that both the GUE/NGL group and Assyrians in Belgium had nothing to do with the held conference, whereas the vice-chairwoman of GUE/NGL joined the panel herself and members of the Assyrian community in Brussels supported the organization of that event. Furthermore, Mrs. Svensson explained that she got the same letter as well not knowing the sources the ambassador took his false information from. Basically, the letter was appealing to Mr. Ferber to not let the conference take place due to “a pre-judged and ill-intentioned designation” as the letter signed by Mr. Volkan Bozkir ends.

Detailed reports and interviews will follow in the next issue of FUNOYO.

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