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Australian MP About the Assyrians of Iraq

Monday, 28 March 2005,

Following is the full text of the Honorable Ryan's speech delivered to the Australian Parliamont on March 23, 2005 at 5:07 PM:

On 30 January this year historic elections took place in the troubled country of Iraq. While we all welcome the introduction of democracy in Iraq, I believe that it is also important to highlight some concerns expressed by the Assyrian community in Australia about irregularities that may have adversely influenced the election outcome for the Christian minority living in that country. These concerns do not invalidate the great significance of the steps taken in Iraq towards democracy, but they must be addressed if all Iraqis are to enjoy the full benefits of democracy. Before I speak further about this matter, I extend my warmest wishes to His Grace Bishop Mar Meelis Zaia, the Diocesan Bishop of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East Diocese of Australia and New Zealand. I wish him and his congregation a happy and prosperous Assyrian new year. I also look forward to working more closely with him and members of his church, many of whom I have met and who live in the Fairfield area, where his church was first established in the mid 1960s.

I also extend my congratulations to Bishop Mar and his congregation on the introduction of an English liturgy to their services, which has been translated with great effort and faithfulness from the Aramaic liturgy. As I mentioned previously, the recent Iraqi elections appear to have been conducted in a way that has disadvantaged Assyrians and has limited their representation within the interim Iraqi Government. This may have serious and profound implications for the safety of the Assyrians and their representation in that country. Australian Assyrian Christians are particularly worried that the minority Assyrian Christian community in Iraq may not be able to enjoy human rights such as the right to freedom of worship and freedom from discrimination. Their anxiety is reasonably based because there have been many calls from the Shi'ite majority in Iraq for an Iranian-style Islamic state to be enshrined in the new Iraqi constitution.

The 30 January elections in Iraq were an historic breakthrough in the development of Iraq as a free and democratic society and were widely supported by Assyrians in Iraq and around the world. Never before has Iraq had free, fair and transparent elections, with thousands of candidates and hundreds of political parties. Never before had the Christian Assyrians, who are a unique and indigenous people in Iraq, been allowed to participate in elections with their own independent parties. But on election day several irregularities took place, affecting at least 300,000 Assyrians, Yezidis and Turkmen in northern Iraq, and a significant number of the 500,000 Assyrians in the worldwide Diaspora. For example, on polling day voting boxes and supplies were not delivered to some northern districts in Iraq. These districts have a population of 300,000 and Assyrian Christians make up a high component of that population. Despite assurances from the head of the Iraqi Electoral Commission the official voting boxes did not arrive from Kurdish-controlled Arbil. This effectively limited the ability of people, Assyrians included, to exercise their democratic rig ht to vote.

The Al-Rafidayn Democratic Coalition, the main party representing the Christian Chaldo Assyrians, has rejected the Iraqi Independent Electoral High Commission's report on voting irregularities in northern Iraq and has strongly criticised the opening of only 93 of the 330 voting centres in the Nineveh governorate on election day. Expatriate Assyrians also found it difficult to vote in some countries. Depriving 300,000 eligible Assyrians of their right to vote may have cost that community up to 10 seats in the 275-seat Iraqi National Assembly. This was not an auspicious beginning to Iraqi democracy for the Assyrian community, who view these events as a possible continuation of the 1,400 years of discrimination and marginalisation that many have endured in Iraq to date because of their minority status in a predominately Muslim country.

Assyrians in Iraq are calling for a minimum number of seats in the new Iraqi Government and have requested that this should be between 22 and 27 seats. This is proportional to the Assyrian population in and out of Iraq, estimated to be between 8 per cent and 10 per cent of Iraq's population. Australian Assyrians supported this claim by demonstrating recently outside the American Consulate in Sydney and outside the New South Wales Parliament. I support the petition from the Australian Chapter of the Assyrian Universal Alliance, which has called on the Federal Government to urge the new Iraqi Government to designate a geographically protected administrative area in Iraq for Christian Assyrians and for other similar minority groups who are currently underrepresented. I have also written to the Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard, in this regard to express my concerns and I eagerly await his reply.

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