Assad’s statements attack Syriacs and distort Syria’s history – Syriac official
QAMISHLI (North Press) – Robeil Beho, an official in the Syriac Union Party (a secular party that represents Syriac people in Syria) said on Sunday that the statements of both Syrian president Bashar Assad and the Minister of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) are a clear attack on the Syriac people and identity, and a distortion of the historic reality of Syria.
“Everybody knows that Syria was not and is not Arab nor Islamic, but they try to impose that to obliterate the history of Syria, as they obliterated the history and identity of the Syriac people,” Beho told North Press.
“The rights of the Syriac people and all communities living in Syria must be given.”
“There are historic benefits that must be mentioned in the Syrian constitution, which is abolishing the Arabic and Islamic identity of the coming Syrian state from the constitution,” he noted.
In a statement published on December 11, the Syriac Union Party accused Assad of failing to recognize the Syriac identity.
“Giving Syria the character of one identity and one religion is considered a dedication of the exclusivist chauvinism of the regime that led the country to this tragic situation,” the statement said.
On December 7, during a meeting of the Syrian Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf), Assad said that the Arabs of the region were speaking and writing Aramaic, and those who are advertising the non-Arabism of Syria are “naïve and of bad faith.”