Assyrian organisations and human rights defenders in Sweden reacted to the court ruling, which sentenced Sefer Bileçen, monk ‘Aho’, to 2 years in prison on charges of terrorism.
On 7 April, a court in Mardin sentenced the Assyrian monk Sefer (Aho) Bileçen – who leads Mor Yacoub Syriac Orthodox Monastery in Mardin province of Turkey – to prison for two years and one month on charges of terrorism, for having given food and water to two Kurdish fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as reported by Medya News last week. https://medyanews.net/assyrian-priest-sefer-aho-bilecen-sentenced-to-two-years-imprisonment-in-turkey/
The Assyrian Women’s Federation, Assyrian Federation, Mesopotamia Freedom Party, Turabdin Federation, Assyrian Democratic Union and the Assyrian Democratic Organization, which represent the Assyrian communities living all around Turkey and Europe, condemned the prison sentence given to the Assyrian monk Aho in a joint statement they issued.
Swedish-Assyrian MP Robert Hannah, a member of the Liberal Party also brought the case of monk Aho to the agenda of the Swedish parliament by a written motion.
“Before ‘Seyfo’ the Assyrian genocide which saw up to 250,000 Assyrian/Chaldean christians slaughtered , Tur Abdin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tur_Abdin#/media/File:Tur_Abdin.svg was a residential area, on which the greatest number of monastries and churches were located, but after the genocide the local Assyriac population was almost completely massacred,.” said Hannah in a parliamentary question.