Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the standing committee, for allowing me to stand here and give my testimony.
I'll begin with a background about Christianity and the people of Iraq and Syria.
With respect to culture, the Christians of Iraq are descended from the native people of ancient Mesopotamia, that is, Assyria and Babylonia, the cradle of civilization. The ancient Christians of Iraq and Syria both trace their Christianity back to apostolic times. By the 10th century in Mesopotamia, which is roughly modern-day Iraq, the Christians constituted a majority of the population and had lived under Muslim rule since the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century AD.
During the First World War, genocide against Christians occurred in what is now Turkey. Millions, including Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syrians or Syriac, were massacred in that horrible genocide. In 1932 Iraq became a member of the League of Nations and an independent country. Immediately after that, in 1933, the Iraqi army initiated a brutal massacre against the Assyrians, and over 3,000 innocent people died. Only those who meekly converted to Islam could save themselves. Immediately after this horrible massacre, the patriarch of the church was exiled. As church historian Christoph Baumer said, “For the surviving Assyrians it was crushing to experience the fact that an Islamic state, only a few months after the establishment of sovereignty, could allow itself to butcher members of a religious minority with impunity. No one reacted; Great Britain helped Iraq to hush up what had happened, and the League of Nations appointed a commission”. This commission recommended that the people could move to other countries. In time, one of them was Canada, and “thus the Assyrians had the status of refugees within their own homeland”.
Turning to the crisis today, things are relevant to what happened about 100 years ago, during the last century. During the crisis in Iraq and Syria and especially in the civil war that has erupted in Syria, Sunni insurgents have been very active under the name ISIS or ISIL. By June 2014 they found their stronghold in northern Iraq, especially in the city of Mosul, and the western part of Iraq in the province of Anbar. ISIS caused the deportation of thousands of Christians who were given options: either convert to Islam, or pay the jizya—the Koranic tax against non-Muslims—or leave, or suffer beheading. Thousands have left Mosul especially to go to northern Iraq, which is experiencing more peace today. They are mostly Christians, but there are also thousands of Yazidis and other minorities. During this exodus about 150,000 Christians and other religious minorities left the city soon after it was captured by ISIS and fled to the autonomous region of Kurdistan relocating mainly in the provinces of Erbil and Dohuk.
Currently, and particularly since winter has set in, there is a serious shortage of resources and basic necessities such as housing, medicine, food, clothing, etc. There is an urgent need for assistance from outside the region.
In the long term, one major concern among the dislocated Christians is that there will be inadequate security after they return to their homes, assuming that this in fact does take place. A great deal of mistrust has developed between ordinary Christians and Muslims. For Christians, those who have openly welcomed ISIS have broken a fundamental trust.
In the midst of the current crisis, all the leaders of the native Christian churches, along with several of the Christian political parties, support the creation of a safe zone within Iraq, where security is guaranteed and protected by the international community in collaboration with the central and regional governments of Iraq.
Also, to help you, I have included certain websites of the communities, with certain interviews or videos and daily reports about the situation in Iraq and Syria.
Thank you.