Anti-Assyrian sentiment

Persecution of Assyrian Christians began in the Sasanian Empire, during the reign of Shapur II, and it began in Beth Garmai, in modern-day Kirkuk.[1] During war with the Roman emperor Constantius II, Shapur imposed tax to cover high costs of the war, and Shemon Bar Sabbae, the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, refused to collect it. Often blaming the Christians of collaborating with the Romans, the Persians began persecuting and executing Christians.[1] An appendix to the Syriac Martyrology of 411 lists the Assyrian Christian martyrs of Persia, but other accounts of martyrs' trials contain important historical details on the workings of the Sassanian Empire's historical geography and judicial and administrative practices.[1] Some were translated into Sogdian and discovered at Turpan.[1]

Under Yazdegerd II, an instance of persecution in 446 is recorded in the Syriac martyrology Acts of Ādur-hormizd and of Anāhīd.[1] Individual martyrdoms were recorded from the reign of Khosrow I, but there were no recorded mass persecutions.[1]

The persecution at the time was triggered by Constantine's conversion to Christianity, which followed that of Armenian king Tiridates in about 301. They were then viewed as being supporters of the Roman Empire.[2] Zoroastrian elites continued viewing the Christians, who happened to be Assyrians, with hatred and distrust during the fifth century with a high threat of persecution, especially during war against the Romans.[3]

Constantine's efforts to protect the Christians of Persia made them a target of accusations of having ties to the Romans. With the resumption of Roman-Sasanian conflict under Constantius II, Zoroastrians targeted clergy and local Christians to eliminate the leaders of the church. A Syriac manuscript in Edessa in 411 documents that "dozens were executed in various parts of western Sasanian Empire".[3]

In 341, Shapur II ordered the persecution of all Christians.[4][5] In response to their subversive attitude and support of Romans, Shapur II doubled the tax on Christians. Shemon Bar Sabbae informed him that they could not pay the taxes demanded from them. He was later martyred and a forty-year-long period of persecution of Assyrian Christians began. The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon gave up choosing clergy since it would result in their death. The local Zoroastrian clerics organized slaughters of Assyrian Christians in Adiabene, Beth Garmae, Khuzistan and many other provinces.[6]

Bahram V continued and intensified their persecution, resulting in many of them fleeing to the Byzantine Empire. Bahram demanded their return after the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422. Although the war ended with an agreement of freedom of religion for Christians in Iran, they suffered destruction of churches, forced conversions, had their property taken, and many were expelled.[7]

Yazdegerd II ordered all of Persia to convert to Zoroastrianism in an attempt to unite it religiously.[8]

In October 1917, the Ottomans launched the Persian campaign with the hopes of capturing more land. The Assyrians, led by Agha Petros held them off until June 1918, however, up to 100,000 Assyrians left Persia in 1918, but around half died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres, starvation, disease, or famine. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and influential leaders had perished.[9]

The city of Urmia and the areas around it, 200 villages were ravaged, 200,000 of Assyrian dead, and hundreds of thousands more Assyrians starving to death in exile. The Associated Press reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, "Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians." The victims included 800 massacred near Urmia, and 2,000 dead from disease. Two hundred Assyrians were burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, "mostly naked and mutilated", some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and others chopped to pieces. The New York Times reported on 11 October that 12,000 Assyrian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped in sex attacks, or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.[10]

On August 11, Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi led a march to what was then one of the most heavily inhabited Assyrian area in Iraq, the Simele district. The Assyrian population of the district of Simele was indiscriminately massacred; men women, and children. In one room alone, eighty one Assyrians of Baz tribe were massacred.[11] Christian priests were prime targets; eight Assyrian priests were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive.[12] Back in the city of Duhok, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.[11] In the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.[13][14][15][16] The Simele massacre of the Assyrian people is often regarded as a phase of the Assyrian genocide beginning in August 1914 in the early days of what became World War I. Today, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids on Assyrians were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign, Bakr Sidqi was invited to Baghdad for a victory rally.[17] The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.[18]

After the Invasion of Iraq and fall of Saddam Hussein, Assyrians became victims of Islamist violence. During the period of 2003-2013, there were increasing amounts of Church attacks, beheadings, and bombings of Assyrians.[19]

After the Fall of Mosul, ISIS demanded that Assyrian Christians living in the city convert to Islam, pay jizyah, or face execution, by July 19, 2014.[20][21][22][23] ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi further noted that Christians who do not agree to follow those terms must "leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate" within a specified deadline. This resulted in a complete Assyrian exodus from Mosul, marking the end of 1,800 years of continuous Christian presence.[24] A church mass was not held in Mosul for the first time in nearly 2 thousand years.[25]

ISIS had also been seen marking Christian homes with the Arabic letter nūn for Nassarah (meaning "Christian").[26][27] Several churches were seized and subsequently demolished, most notably Mar Behnam Monastery.[28] By August 7, ISIS captured the Assyrian towns of Qaraqosh, Tel Keppe, Bartella, and Karamlish, prompting the residents to flee.[29][30] More than 100,000 Assyrians fled their homes and left all their property behind after ISIS invaded the Nineveh Plains.[31]

On 23 February 2015, 150 Assyrians from villages near Tell Tamer in northeastern Syria were kidnapped by ISIS.[32][33] At Assyrian Christian farming villages on the banks of the Khabur River in Northeast Syria, 253 people, 51 of them children and 84 of them were women, with one account claiming that ISIS is demanding $22 million (or roughly $100,000 per person) for their release.[34] On 8 October 2015, ISIS released a video showing three of the Assyrian men kidnapped in Khabur being murdered. It was reported that 202 of the 253 kidnapped Assyrians were still in captivity, each one with a demanded ransom of $100,000.[35] On 25 October, hundreds of civilians were trapped in Sadad, Syria, with Archbishop Silwanos Al-Nemeh saying that the situation was dire and that they were in fear of a massacre.[36] Also, opposition fighters entered the Mar Theodore Church damaging it and stealing Church items.[37] More than 100 government soldiers and 100 rebels, including 80 jihadists from ISIS and al-Nusra, were killed in the fighting. Foreign rebel fighters were also among the dead.[38] The rebels retreated to the surrounding farmland, with the military in pursuit, and the government news agency reported that the militants had vandalized Sadad's Saint Theodor Church and much of its infrastructure.[39]

The Assyrians were once a large ethnic minority in the Ottoman Empire, living in the Hakkari, Sirnak and Mardin provinces, and they relatively lived in peace, until Sayfo (1915, also known as the Assyrian genocide), most were murdered or forced to emigrate mostly to Assyrian areas in Iraq or Syria. Most of those who survived the genocide and stayed in Turkey left the country for Western Europe in the 2nd half of the 20th century, due to the Kurdish–Turkish conflict.[40]

The Ottoman Empire had an elaborate system of administering the non-Muslim "People of the Book." That is, they made allowances for accepted monotheists with a scriptural tradition and distinguished them from people they defined as pagans. As People of the Book (or dhimmi), Jews, Christians and Mandaeans (in some cases Zoroastrians) received second-class treatment but were tolerated.

After 1923, local politicians went on an anti-Christian campaign that negatively affected the Syriac communities that had not been affected by the 1915 genocide (such as Adana, Urfa or Adiyaman). Many were forced to abandon their properties and flee to Syria, eventually settling in Aleppo, Qamishli, or the Khabur. The Syriac Orthodox patriarchate was expelled from Turkey in 1924, despite its declarations of loyalty to the new Turkish government.[41] Unlike Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, Assyrians were not recognized as a minority group in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[42] The remaining population were forced to live in submission to Kurdish tribal leaders, and were subjected to constant harassment and abuse which pushed them to emigrate.[43][42] Turkish laws denaturalized those who had fled and confiscated their property. Despite their actual citizenship rights, many Assyrians who remained in Turkey had to re-purchase their own properties from Kurdish aghas or risk losing their Turkish citizenship.[43] Some Assyrians continued to live in Tur Abdin until the 1980s; this was the last substantial Christian population in Turkey living rurally in its original homeland.[44] Some scholars have described ongoing exclusion and harassment of Syriacs in Turkey as a continuation of Sayfo.[45]

Some Assyrians who have fled from ISIS have found temporary homes in the city of Midyat. A refugee center is located near Midyat, but due to there being a small Assyrian community in Midyat, many of the Assyrian refugees at the camp went to Midyat hoping for better conditions than the refugee camp had. Many refugees were given help and accommodation by the local Assyrian community there, perhaps wishing that the refugees stay, as the community in Midyat is in need of more members.[46]

• Anti-Armenian sentiment