This article is written by Saman Daoud. It is part of a series examining free expression and information access in civic spaces across six language communities in the MENA region. In the vibrant landscape of the Middle East challenges, addressing Assyrians’ freedom of expression necessitates examining the ongoing political marginalization they endure in their Indigenous homeland that spans contemporary Iraq, and some areas in Turkey and Syria. Their story is a reflection of the struggles faced by minority communities in a region marked by political turbulence. As the world marked the Assyrian New Year, reaching the remarkable year 6773, celebrations echoed across Iraq, Syria and beyond. However, beneath the surface, a profound sadness gripped Assyrian minorities who stayed in their ancestral homelands, from Duhok, and Erbil to Nineveh, and Baghdad in Iraq. Over the past two decades, ongoing oppression, ethnic and sectarian conflicts and political unrest have sharply reduced the Assyrian community in the Middle East. Many have fled to Europe, the US, and Australia, endangering the Assyrian language, with its 3000-year history in its native Middle Eastern home. The Assyrian population in Iraq has declined significantly, plummeting from an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million in the 1990s to less than 142,000 today, as reported by the Shalma Foundation, an organization dedicated to documenting the populations of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac people in Iraq. This decline can be attributed to the region’s shifting political landscape, particularly in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, which has cast a long shadow over the Iraqi people to this day. Successive Iraqi governments have failed to protect Assyrian communities from terrorist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The latter has aggressively sought control over Assyrian ancestral lands in Nineveh, even using Assyrians as human shields during confrontations along the Iraqi–Turkish borders. This coercive tactic aims to intimidate Assyrians into leaving. These challenges have reshaped the Assyrians’ way of life, affecting their human rights and, notably, their freedom to express their identity, culture, and language. As per Assyrian Policy Institute, Assyrians in Iraq declined by nearly 90% after the Iraq war. That's how delicate demographics are. Things can turn turtle when a regime changes. pic.twitter.com/Nvslh5wDSW — Pradip Varma (@Pradip_K_Varma) June 26, 2023 In the Middle East’s diversity, the Assyrians emerge as a distinctive Indigenous minority with unique ethnic, religious, and linguistic identities. They trace their ancestry back to the ancient Assyrian civilization that flourished in Mesopotamia, now Iraq. While predominantly Christian, the Assyrians also include smaller Muslim and Yazidi minorities who identify with their Assyrian heritage. Assyrian Empire pic.twitter.com/O7ZpN1DJO3 — Sumerian and Hittite Language (Hasan Türk) (@SumerianHittite) July 27, 2023 The Assyrians have endured marginalization since the collapse of their empire in 609 BC. In the dawn of the 20th century, along with other regional ethnic groups, Assyrians suffered under Ottoman rule, marked by Turkification policies that aimed at imposing a singular identity. This era witnessed Ottoman genocides against Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, and others, forcing Assyrians to flee and hide their cultural, religious, and linguistic identity out of fear for their lives. Hakkari Assyrian Homeland – Let Them Not Return Haydar Bey, the governor of Mosul, was given in May 1915 the power to invade Hakkari. Talaat Pascha,interior minister of Turkey, ordered him to drive the Assyrians out and added, “We should not let them return to their homelands”. pic.twitter.com/yQR56p60J4 — Athro ܐܬܪܐ (@athro14) July 26, 2023 Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Assyrian oppression continued as the Kingdom of Iraq emerged under British mandate. Assyrians had sought an independent entity in exchange for their army service, but Britain's failure to uphold its promises led to hostility and oppression by the newly formed Iraqi government. In 1933, the Iraqi army brutally targeted over 60 Assyrian villages in the infamous Simele massacre, claiming over 3,000 lives. This massacre posed a real threat to the Assyrian presence in the region, prompting another mass exodus. In an interview with Global Voices, Saad Salloum, an academic specializing in Iraqi minorities, and an Assistant Professor in International Relations at Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, highlighted that the Simele massacre deepened the distrust between Assyrians and their Kurdish and Arab neighbors, especially that the oppression never stopped.