Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United States policy recognizing the Assyrian Genocide.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution commemorates the Assyrian Genocide and urges Turkey to officially recognize the Assyrian Genocide.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 550 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 550

 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United 
            States policy recognizing the Assyrian Genocide.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 22, 2021

   Mr. Harder of California (for himself, Ms. Eshoo, and Mr. Schiff) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
                           on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United 
            States policy recognizing the Assyrian Genocide.

Whereas the Ottoman Empire committed the crime of genocide against the Assyrian 
        people, killing at least 300,000 innocent Assyrians by way of mass 
        executions, death marches, torture, and starvation during the First 
        World War;
Whereas, in August 1933, approximately 3,000 Assyrians were brutally murdered in 
        Semele in the Duhok and Mosul districts of modern-day Iraq by the 
        nascent Iraqi army and irregular Kurdish and Arab forces;
Whereas August 7 is globally observed by the Assyrian community as Assyrian 
        Memorial Day in remembrance of all massacres and genocides committed 
        against the Assyrian people and of the persecution this community has 
        faced as a result of their distinct ethnic and religious identity;
Whereas the International Association of Genocide Scholars has found that the 
        genocide against the Assyrian population was part of a larger campaign 
        against Christian minorities, including Armenians and Pontian and 
        Anatolian Greeks;
Whereas Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ``genocide'' in 1944, drew on the 
        history of the Assyrian Genocide in his seminal work that guided the 
        United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime 
        of Genocide;
Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public 
        Law 115-441) establishes that atrocities prevention represents a United 
        States national interest, and affirms that it is the policy of the 
        United States to pursue a United States Governmentwide strategy to 
        identify, prevent, and respond to the risk of atrocities by 
        ``strengthening diplomatic response and the effective use of foreign 
        assistance to support appropriate transitional justice measures, 
        including criminal accountability, for past atrocities'';
Whereas the resilience and endurance of the Assyrian people is commendable and 
        praiseworthy, despite being victims of an ethnocide that is being 
        continued by the Islamic State;
Whereas the Assyrian community across the world continues to feel the effects of 
        the Assyrian Genocide, including families that have never been reunited;
Whereas recognition and commemoration of a genocide is critical to efforts of 
        preventing both future genocides and further harm to the group upon 
        which the genocide was committed; and
Whereas the Assyrian Genocide remains unrecognized by many countries and 
        organizations across the globe, including the United States: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
it is the policy of the United States to--
            (1) commemorate the Assyrian Genocide through official 
        recognition and remembrance;
            (2) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
        associate the United States Government with denial of the 
        Assyrian Genocide or any other genocide;
            (3) call upon the Republic of Turkey to officially 
        recognize the Assyrian Genocide; and
            (4) encourage education and public understanding of the 
        facts of the Assyrian Genocide, including the United States 
        role in the humanitarian relief effort, and the relevance of 
        the Assyrian Genocide to modern-day crimes against humanity.
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