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Anti-Assyrian sentiment, also known asanti-Assyrianism andAssyriophobia, refers to negative feelings, dislikes, fears, aversions, racism, derision, and/or prejudice towardsAssyria,Assyrian culture,Syriac Christianity, andAssyrians, as well asChaldeans,Syriacs, andArameans.
Anti-Assyrian sentiment largely manifested itself during the time of thedissolution of the Ottoman Empire, reaching its peak with theAssyrian genocide (Sayfo),[1][2] and has continued throughout the 20th and 21st centuries in varying forms acrossIraq,Iran,Syria, andTurkey, that is, all the countries that were established on the territory of the destroyed indigenous Assyrian homeland ofAssyria.[3] The most notorious and destructive examples of violence towards Assyrians include theSimele massacre,[4] theAnfal campaign, forced assimilation campaigns (Arabization,Kurdification,Turkification), and systematic persecution by theIslamic State terrorists. Similar toAnti-Armenian sentiment, Anti-Assyrian sentiment has historically also been fueled by anAnti-Christian sentiment.
In 1894–1897, during theHamidian massacres in theOttoman Empire, hundreds of thousands ofArmenians were killed.[5] Kurdish and Turkish forces carried out attacks in some regions, and it is estimated that around 55,000Assyrians were also brutally killed.[6]
George Aslan, an Assyrian-Turkish politician, was harassed in the Turkish parliament for speakingTuroyo. In 2023, around Christmas, he sent a Turoyo message to the Assyrians in Turkey, with permission fromSırrı Süreyya Önder, although members of theGood Party interrupted his speech with racial insults.[7][8]
He responded to the Good Party by stating, "I want to repeat what I said in the Parliament: We did not bring this language from another planet. Syriac is a language of this land. We have been the indigenous people of this land for 12,000 years. We were here when no one else was on these lands. Why they react so strongly is incomprehensible. However, we know that this is a denial of real history." In 2024, also around Christmas, he delivered another Turoyo message beforeBekir Bozdağ turned off his microphone, to which Aslan replied that "Some deputies are reading Arabic verses from the Quran on the podium. Please turn it off when the verses are read. If it doesn't turn off, I, who never tease anyone, will tease you very much, believe me. If there is holiness, all holiness is given importance."[9]
In 1843, Assyrian Christians inHakkari faceda series of massacres, which lasted until 1846, orchestrated by the Kurdish emirsBedir Khan Beg andNurullah Beg of Bohtan and Hakkari, with support from someAssyrian tribes opposingShimun XVII Abraham’sauthority.[10][11] According to Dr. Smith, the death toll from these events ranged between 10,000 and 15,000, with roughly 10,000 killed during the initial campaign. Another American missionary, Justin Perkins, estimated that about 7,000 Nestorians were slain inTkhuma alone in 1846.[12]
In 1850, 10,000Nestorians andArmenians were brutally massacred in the Kurdish regions near the head-waters of the Tigris, carried out by certain Kurdish and Muslim forces involved in the conflict.[13][14][15][16]
In 1911,Jessie Payne Margoliouth, a British Assyriologist, while describing the Ottoman Empire, stated that the Kurds "are natural enemies of the Assyrians, and live side by side with them. Struggles are almost constantly going on between them, frequently producing actual conflicts."[17] In October 1917,the Ottomans launched thePersian campaign with the hopes of capturing more land. The Assyrians, led byAgha 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.[18]
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.[19]
In theKurdistan Region, Assyrians claimed that Kurdish authorities often attempted to portray Assyrians as Christian Kurds.[20] In 2008, Assyrians formed theQaraqosh Protection Committee,[21] aiming to protect Assyrian towns, villages, and regions. In 2008,Paulos Faraj Rahho was assassinated. Some Assyrians accused the Kurds, while others accused the Arabs. Some Assyrians have claimed that Kurdish forces, namely KDP, often used to practice shooting targets on Assyrian cultural heritage sites.[22]
In 2009, Benham Benoka, anAssyrian priest and community leader, complained that a group ofShabaks, supported by the Kurdish government, entered Assyrian neighborhoods in theNineveh Plains and provocatively heldMuharram mourning rituals in front of a church onChristmas.[23]
TheUnited States Department of State reported that "Kurdish authorities abused and discriminated against minorities in the North, including Turcomen, Arabs, Christians, and Shabak", and that Kurdish authorities "denied services to some villages, arrested minorities without due process and took them to undisclosed locations for detention, and pressured minority schools to teach in the Kurdish language."[24]
Assyrians accused the Kurdish school curriculum ofKurdification, and accused the KRG of confiscating and occupying Assyrian lands, claiming that "the Kurds invent new and impossible laws when the legitimate owners ask for their lands."[25] SomeAssyrians claimed that while Kurds were well funded, the Assyrians received almost no funding for their schools. They also accused Kurdish authorities of changing traditional Christian names to Kurdish names, and even portraying Christian biblical figures as Kurds in some textbooks.[26] Assyrian activists claimed that Kurds who attacked Assyrians were either allowed to walk freely or given light sentences.[27] They claimed that Kurds also targeted Assyrians who supported the KRG.[28][29]
The US State government reported that in the KRG, Assyrian schools and classes were not permitted to teach in Syriac and were even prevented in some cases.[30][31] There were also incidents of mob violence by thePKK against Christians.[30][31] Assyrian activists criticised the KRG for the lack of investigation of bombings in 1998 and 1999 targeting Assyrians in Erbil.[30][31] According to the US Department of State, the KDP had blockaded Assyrian villages in 1999 and "later entered the villages and beat villagers." However, the KDP withdrew from the villages after pressure from the Red Cross.[30] Assyrian organizations accused Kurdish criminal organizations of forcing Assyrian girls into prostitution and threatening their families.[22]
The2011 Duhok riots began on 2 December in theDuhok Governorate,Iraq, after sermons inZakho called for attacks on businesses. The unrest spread to other towns, where Assyrian- and Yazidi-owned properties were looted and burned, causing around four million dollars in damages.
Christian priests were prime targets; eight Assyrianpriests were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive.[32] Back in the city ofDuhok, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.[33] In the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.[34][35][36][37] The Simele massacre of theAssyrian people is often regarded as a phase of theAssyrian genocide beginning in August 1914, in the early days of what becameWorld War I. Today, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids onAssyrians were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign,Bakr Sidqi was invited toBaghdad for a victory rally.[38] The campaign resulted in one-third of theAssyrian population of Iraq fleeing toSyria.[39]
In 1962, thirty-threeAssyrians were killed inBarwar,Iraq, by forces under the Kurdish leaderMustafa Barzani.[40]
In 1969, 39 members of theIraqi Chaldean community were killed in the Soria Massacre during a military attack.[41]
In 1980, before the outbreak of theIran–Iraq War, thousands of Iraqi citizens of Persian descent, including manyAssyrians andKurds, were deported toIran. During the conflict, an estimated 10,000 Assyrian men fromIraq lost their lives.[42]
On 2 March 1985, threeAssyrians were executed inIraq by theBa’ath regimefor opposing the government’s Arabization policies.[43]
After theInvasion of Iraq and the fall ofSaddam Hussein, Assyrians became victims ofIslamist violence. During the period of 2003–2013, there were increasing amounts of Church attacks, beheadings, and bombings of Assyrians.[44]
After theFall of Mosul,ISIS demanded that Assyrian Christians living in the cityconvert to Islam, payjizyah, or face execution by 19 July 2014.[45][46][47][48] ISIS leaderAbu 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 completeAssyrian exodus fromMosul, marking the end of 1,800 years of continuous Christian presence.[49] A church mass was not held in Mosul for the first time in nearly 2 thousand years.[50]
In 2020, a political party called "Hawpa" was established inErbil. The party's ideology is based on the Hîwa Party (1939 – 1946) and the Kajik Party (1959 – 1975), both of which were founded on the basis offascism andNazism.[51] The party has previously used social media platforms to express beliefs thatArabs should be expelled from the Kurdish region, while Assyrians andTurkmen should be subject to genocide. In 2025, two Assyrian organizations in Europe sent a joint letter to the KRG denouncing their recognition of the party as an organization and continued targeting of Assyrians and non-Kurdish groups.[52]
On April 1, 2025, duringKha b-Nisan celebrations in the city ofDuhok, twoAssyrians were injured by a Syrian refugee in what is believed to have been an Islamist terror attack.[53] The attacker initially hid the weapons in a bag until making his way to the scene of the parades for the Assyrian New Year.[54] AnAssyrian flag that had been stained with blood was waved during the rest of the parade as a symbol of resilience and was also present in social media videos. After the attack, celebrations of Akitu continued as planned, with attendees continuing to wave flags and perform traditional dances.[55] The attack was greatly condemned by members of the Assyrian community, particularly in thediaspora, who faced a wave of hate speech on social media following the attack.[56] The event also sparked concerns about the safety of Assyrians who remain in Iraq, and the willingness of the diaspora to make returns to live in the country or visit for celebrations.[57]
On 23 February 2015, 150Assyrians from villages nearTell Tamer in northeastern Syria were kidnapped by ISIS.[58][59] 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.[60] 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.[61] On 25 October, hundreds of civilians were trapped inSadad, Syria, with Archbishop Silwanos Al-Nemeh saying that the situation was dire and that they were in fear of a massacre.[62] Also, opposition fighters entered the Mar Theodore Church, damaging it and stealing Church items.[63] 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.[64] 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.[65]
The2015 Qamishli bombings occurred on 30 December in an Assyrian neighborhood ofQamishli,Syria. Three explosions, including at least one suicide bombing, killed 16 people (14 Assyrian Christians and 2 Muslims) and wounded 35. TheIslamic State claimed responsibility, though some Assyrian organizations suggested KurdishYPG involvement.
In 1578, a Kurdish force of 10,000 attacked the city ofUrmia inIran, killing, looting, and carrying off over 1,000 Assyrian prisoners.[66][67]
It said that Islamic State leaderAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom the group has now named Caliph Ibrahim, had set a Saturday deadline for Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to "leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate". "After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword," it said.
