by James C. Martin

A Somerville man joined scores of Assyrian Christians Feb. 19 marching in protest in front of the United Nations in New York City.

“The Assyrians have been second-class citizens in Iraq ever since the seventh century, and this election was a chance for change,” Nels Mishael Naby Frye, a 23-year-old resident of Milton Street.

“Assyrians supported the invasion of Iraq but now they are afraid Bush has forgotten them,” he said.
Most of the protesters traveled to the UN building on a bus from Worcester or were local to New York City, he said.
The Assyrians are a Christian ethnic minority who has lived in Iraq since long before the state’s modern form, he said.
The protesters chanted, “Who are we?” and “Let us vote!” and held signs in English, Aramaic, and a sign Frye had written in Chinese, he said.
Frye said they also spoke with passers-by about the single seat in the 275-member Transitional National Assembly that the Assyrians took in the election.
“How could at least three percent of the population elect only one representative, when this election fell along ethnic lines?” said Frye.
The demonstrators hoped to see the election results modified to achieve fair and equal National Assembly representation for the indigenous Iraqi Assyrian population, he said.
An example of the suppression of Assyrian participation in the electoral process is the fact that Iraq’s Assyrian population of 700,000 was credited with only 32,000 votes in the election, he said.
“The Iraqi Independent Electoral High Commission publicly acknowledged that out of 330 voting stations in the Assyrian Administrative Area only 93 were opened,” said Ken Joseph Jr., the director of AssyrianChristians.com on his Web site.
Many Assyrians consider this and other actions to be deliberate vote suppression by the Kurdish Democratic Party, he said.
Frye said that many passers-by were interested to speak with the demonstrators, and he was pleased that Saturday’s demonstration helped to raise awareness of who Assyrians are and what there situation is.