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HR-126 (2021-2022)

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HR126:v99#DOCUMENT

Revised  August 15, 2022

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

House Resolution
No. 126

Introduced by Assembly Member Flora
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Aguiar-Curry, Alvarez, Bauer-Kahan, Bennett, Berman, Bigelow, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Mia Bonta, Bryan, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Cooley, Cooper, Cunningham, Megan Dahle, Daly, Davies,  Fong, Mike Fong, Friedman, Gabriel, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kiley, Lackey, Lee, Levine, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, McKinnor, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nguyen, O’Donnell, Patterson, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Rendon, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Seyarto, Smith, Stone, Ting, Valladares, Villapudua, Voepel, Waldron, Akilah Weber, Wicks, and Wilson)

August 08, 2022

Relative to the Genocide of 1915 and the Simele Massacre of 1933.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


HR 126, as introduced, Flora.
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, the Assyrian Genocide occurred; during this time, the Ottoman Empire murdered over 300,000 Assyrian men, women, and children, which constituted two-thirds of the Assyrian people, 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 Simple Massacre of 1933 both inspired Raphael Lambkin to coin the term “genocide” and initiated the Genocide Convention in the 1940s; and
WHEREAS, August 7, 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, The Assyrian people are a resilient and enduring nation, despite being a nation of survivors of genocide and persecution that continue to be perpetuated to this day; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the Assembly of the State of California 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 Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
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REVISIONS:
Heading—Line 2.
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