German government must speak up for the Christian community of the Assyrian Aramaeans in Turkey

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has called on the German government to speak up for the protection and maintenance of the threatened Syrian Orthodox monastery of Mor Gabriel in the south-east of Turkey. The remaining Christian minority of the Assyrian Aramaeans, which in the Tur Abdin region is very small, urgently needs advocates and supporters to prevent its Christian tradition there, which is two thousand years old, from disappearing for ever", said the GfbV consultant Sarah Reinke at a demonstration of solidarity on Sunday in Berlin. Three neighbouring Kurdish Moslem villages are claiming large parts of the area belonging to Mor Gabriel as pasture-land. For the Christians the quarrel concerning property of the monastery, which has a 1,600-year old history, is part of the intimidation campaign. Between two and three thousand Assyrian Aramaeans are still living in Tur Abdin.

"Chancellor Merkel must exercise pressure on the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to stop stirring up and supporting the Moslem neighbours against the monastery", said Reinke. "They must be called to restraint and respect for the property of the monastery and for individual Assyrian Aramaic families." Tens of thousands of Christians fled in the 80s to western European countries and had to leave their property behind because they could no longer cope with the pressure of persecution from the fundamentalist Moslems and the Turkish authorities. Since there are at least 60,000 Assyrian Aramaeans living amongst us as German citizens, there is a particular obligation on the part of Germany to come to their aid.