The state parliament of New South Wales has passed a motion recognising the killing of 1.5 million Armenians, 750,000 Assyrians and 500,000 Greeks between 1915 and 1922 as genocide, earlier this month.
Smithfield state Liberal MP Andrew Rohan paid tribute to an Australian soldier who helped rescue his Assyrian parents, in a speech to the state parliament last week, while noting the genocide carried out by the Ottoman empire.
Assyrian Universal Alliance deputy secretary-general Hermiz Shahen, who have been campaigning for genocide recognition, said,
“This recognition will help our Assyrian nation and its organisations in their attempt to strengthen our national existence in the homeland as well as in the diaspora,”
“It will help our nation to find its rightful place among the nations of the world and to creatively make its special contribution to the universal development of mankind.”