THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	62
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE RESOLUTION

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGING AND URGING TURKEY AND IRAQ TO RECOGNIZE THE GENOCIDE COMMITTED AGAINST ASSYRIANS BETWEEN 1915-1933.

 

 

     WHEREAS, international scholars emphasize the importance of acknowledging historic acts of genocide to deter future occurrences of mass violence; and

 

     WHEREAS, formal state recognition of genocide can be an important first step in giving historians and scholars access to needed records; and

 

     WHEREAS, this year marks the 109th anniversary of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocide of 1915 (also known as the Seyfo genocide), which was committed by Ottoman Turks; and

 

     WHEREAS, between 1915 and 1923, approximately two—thirds of the Assyrian population were slaughtered while living in the Ottoman Empire and in Persia on ancestral lands; and

 

     WHEREAS, in August 1933, approximately six thousand Assyrians were brutally murdered in Simele in the Dohuk and Mosul districts of modern—day Iraq by the nascent Iraqi army and irregular Kurdish and Arab forces; and

 

     WHEREAS, the genocide committed against Assyrians has largely gone unrecognized and is denied by the governments of Iraq and Turkey; and

 

     WHEREAS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars has found that the genocide against the Assyrian population was part of a larger campaign against Christian minorities, including Armenians and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks; and

 

     WHEREAS, the European Parliament has urged Turkey to recognize the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides and to; and facilitate scholars' access to historical archives; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2024, that the Legislature acknowledges the genocide committed against Assyrians between 1915 and 1923 and the Seyfo genocide committed in 1933; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature joins the European Parliament in urging the governments of Turkey and Iraq to recognize the genocide against Assyrians and to give scholars access to historical archives and "all relevant documents"; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, United States Secretary of State, President of Turkey, President of Iraq, and International Association of Genocide Scholars.

 

 

 

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________