Full Text of HR0765 101st General Assembly
HR0765 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
| | HR0765 | | LRB101 20516 MST 70118 r |
|
| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, Assyrians, an ethnic minority group, are the | 3 | | indigenous people of Mesopotamia and have lived in the Middle | 4 | | East since ancient times, including in what is today Turkey, | 5 | | Iraq, Iran, and Syria; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, Assyrians, also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, | 7 | | today live around the world, including over 600,000 in the | 8 | | United States and over 34,000 in Illinois; and
| 9 | | WHEREAS, Between 1914 and 1923, the Assyrian Genocide | 10 | | occurred, during which the Ottoman Empire murdered over 300,000 | 11 | | Assyrian men, women, and children by methods that included mass | 12 | | executions, death marches, torture, and starvation; and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, During the Assyrian Genocide, also known as the | 14 | | Seyfo Genocide, the Ottoman Turks and their Kurdish allies also | 15 | | systematically raped and enslaved Assyrian women and girls, | 16 | | forced the Assyrians from their ancestral lands, and pillaged | 17 | | and destroyed their communities; and | 18 | | WHEREAS, The massacre of over two million Armenians, | 19 | | Assyrians, Greeks, and other Christian and religious minority | 20 | | populations represented the final culmination of a series of | 21 | | violent persecutions dating back to the late 1800s; and |
| | | HR0765 | - 2 - | LRB101 20516 MST 70118 r |
|
| 1 | | WHEREAS, 2020 marks the 105th anniversary of the Armenian, | 2 | | Assyrian, and Greek genocides of 1915, which were part of the | 3 | | planned eradication of those indigenous communities by the | 4 | | Ottoman Turkish Empire, yet to this day, Turkey has still not | 5 | | recognized these genocides; and | 6 | | WHEREAS, The denial of genocide is widely recognized as the | 7 | | final stage of genocide, maintaining impunity for the | 8 | | perpetrators of these atrocities and demonstrably paving the | 9 | | way for future genocides; and
| 10 | | WHEREAS, The resilience and endurance of the Assyrian | 11 | | people is commendable and praiseworthy, despite being victims | 12 | | of an ethnocide that the Islamic State continues today; | 13 | | therefore, be it
| 14 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 15 | | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 16 | | we recognize the Assyrian Genocide of 1915 as a genocide and | 17 | | reprehensible crime against humanity and honor the memory of | 18 | | the hundreds of thousands of Assyrians who were murdered during | 19 | | the Assyrian Genocide of 1915; and be it further | 20 | | RESOLVED, That we declare August 7, 2020 as "Assyrian | 21 | | Remembrance Day" in the State of Illinois; and be it further
|
| | | HR0765 | - 3 - | LRB101 20516 MST 70118 r |
|
| 1 | | RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be | 2 | | presented to the Assyrian National Council of Illinois and the | 3 | | Assyrian American Association of Chicago.
|
|