Seminar on Assyrian Genocide held in Australia

PanARMENIAN.Net - A scholarly seminar addressing the Assyrian Genocide was held in Victoria, Australia, on August 14.

The seminar, organized by the Australian Assyrian Arts and Literature Foundation, Victorian Assyrian Community and Beth-Nahrin Cultural Club was one of a number of events held each August commemorating Assyrian victims of persecution, massacre and genocide throughout history.

As Assyrian International News Agency reported, seminar guests included the Hon. Jenny Mikakos, Member of the Victorian Parliament and Her Worship Councillor Helen Patsikatheodorou, Mayor of Hume City Council. Representatives of Australia's peak Greek and Armenian social, political and advocacy bodies were in attendance along with Mr Hermiz Shahen and Mr David David representing the Assyrian Universal Alliance and Mr Simon Essavian, president of the Assyrian Australian National Federation. Also present were clergymen from the Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church along with leaders of Melbourne's Assyrian community organizations. It is noteworthy that the Consulate of the Hellenic Republic in Victoria had also sent a representative to participate in the Seminar. Jenny Mikakos, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, addressed the Seminar noting her solidarity with the Assyrian community in Victoria and pledging ongoing support for the Assyrian Genocide recognition movement in Australia.

Dr Anahit Khosroeva, senior researcher at Armenia's National Academy of Sciences and Scholar-in-Residence at Chicago's North Park University, delivered the seminar's keynote lecture focusing on the Assyrian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lecture gave an account of state-sanctioned crimes against the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek peoples referencing primary resource materials, including photographs and governmental documentation from the Ottoman Empire and other states.