monument in australia to commemorate Assyrian victims
of 1915 Genocide

Dec.15, 2009

Safo Center

Fairfield City Council in Sydney, Australia approved the application to construct a monument to the memory of the Assyrians who were victims during Seyfo 1915 and simai massacre in 1933. The AUA, Assyrian Universal Alliance worked hard to gain support for the construction of a Seyfo-monuments. In 2002 AUA wrote to the mayor of Fairfiled City an application to get Seyfo-genocide recognized by the municipality and to erect a monument to commemorate the victims.

Today Fairfiled City's City Council met to consider and act on the monumental issue. Despite strong protests from the Turkish organizations and the Turkish state through its embassy in Sydney the Fairfiled City's City Council approval of an application to travel Seyfo monument.

AUA announced that the construction of this memorial will begin shortly and is scheduled for completion in May 2010. The official unveiling is expected to take place on August 7, days a year to honor the memory of the Assyrians who were victims of Seyfo 1915 and simela massacre of 1933. AUA also announced that it submitted a separate application on 8 October 2009 to name the park around the monument to the "Garden of Nineveh" after the famous capital of ancient Assyria.

Toma publo

Sayfo Center

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monument in australia to commemorate Assyrian Genocide victims

and Assyrian communities were separated by police outside the Fairfield Council offices last night after the council approved plans for a monument commemorating what was called the Assyrian genocide. At least 40 police stood between the two groups as the council considered plans for the first ever Australian memorial to Assyrians killed by Turkish forces during World War I and subsequent conflicts.

A local group, calling itself the Assyrian Universal Alliance, had proposed to build a 4.5-metre-high memorial to victims of the Assyrian genocides in a reserve under construction opposite Bonnyrigg Park. However, the move is bitterly opposed by the local Turkish community, which disagrees with the Assyrians’ interpretation of the past. At least 100 Turkish Australians bearing signs critical of the proposal gathered at the front of the council building while at least as many Assyrians draped in Assyrian and Armenian flags stood on the other side.

At 7.30pm the council voted to approve the monument, producing a spontaneous outburst by the Assyrians. ”Winner, winner, winner - thank you Australia,” one jubilant Assyrian said. A Turkish protester Gokhan Tugcu, 25, said the monument was divisive and should never have been allowed. ”Australia, being a multicultural society shouldn’t have things like this that divide the different cultures that live here. [It’s] a statue now, it could be in the school curriculum later on,” Mr Tugcu said. As the crowd left the council emotions grew.

One man standing with the Turkish group called out ”Ottomans” and slid his fingers across his throat. Hermiz Shahen, the deputy secretary of the Assyrian Alliance, said that the monument was never intended as an insult. ”If you respect the ANZACS, you are not insulting the Turkish people,” he said. ”We just want to erect a monument to respect the victims of genocide”. But a local resident, Adem Cetinay, who has a Turkish background, believes that the memorial is already causing a split. ”We’re dividing the community and that has never happened before,” he said. Within two days of hearing about the proposed memorial, Mr Cetinay obtained more than 800 signatures for a petition opposing it. ”If it goes ahead, our kids are going to grow up here with this monument in their faces,” he said. The Local Government Association of NSW has formally recognised that genocide was perpetrated against the Assyrians since World War I. But neither the NSW Government nor the Federal Government have come to the same conclusion.