Bill Text: IL HR0870 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

---

Bill Title: Recognizes the genocide of the Greeks of Pontos, Asia Minor, and Eastern Thrace and urges the Turkish government to do the same as a means of bringing closure to the descendants of the victims of these genocides and preventing such atrocities in the future. Recognizes September 14, 1922 as the end of their presence in their homeland of 3,000 years.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-08-01 - Filed with the Clerk by Rep. Margaret Croke [HR0870 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0870-Introduced.html

---

HR0870 LRB103 41716 MST 74937 r
HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Illinois and the United States have been a refuge
for those seeking protection from persecution and oppression,
whether by reason of religion or nationality; and
WHEREAS, Those who cherish freedom can never take it for
granted, and those who respect justice can never be completely
secure in it; and
WHEREAS, Those who value freedom are duty-bound to promote
it and to protect it by using their voices and influence to
meet the challenges that might confront its sanctity and to
help protect the life and liberty of those who depend upon
freedom and human dignity; and
WHEREAS, No other human rights violation deserves greater
vigilance, protest, and recognition while demanding the
strongest condemnation by freedom loving people than the crime
of genocide; and
WHEREAS, For the Greeks of Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern
Thrace, the horror and inhumanity of this savagely brutal
crime began as pogroms in 1913 to 1923 by the Ottoman and
Kemalist governments, in what is today known as Turkey; and

HR0870 - 2 - LRB103 41716 MST 74937 r
WHEREAS, In July and August 1914, months before the
Ottoman entry into World War I, Greek Christian men between
the ages of 18 and 48 years were drafted into the notorious
labor battalions of the Ottoman army where most of them died
due to brutal labor conditions, malnutrition, and extreme
weather; and
WHEREAS, The Honorable George Horton, U.S. Consul General
in Smyrna at the time of the genocides, affirmed that from 1914
to 1923 Greeks of Asia Minor and Thrace endured immeasurable
cruelty resulting in genocide during a systematic Ottoman
government-sanctioned campaign to kill and to displace the
Greek population; and
WHEREAS, The Asia Minor Greeks and the Pontian Greeks
whose ancestors had lived for three millennia in communities
in Anatolia and along the shores and in the mountains of the
Black Sea coast, in what is today northern Turkey, were
singled out by the Ottoman and Kemalist authorities for murder
and expulsion from their ancestral lands, resulting in
approximately one million deaths; and
WHEREAS, The biblical city of Smyrna, once called The
Jewel of the Mediterranean, was a cosmopolitan hub settled by
Greeks in 1200 BCE and populated by large, highly-educated
Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities with a flourishing

HR0870 - 3 - LRB103 41716 MST 74937 r
commercial and middle-class; and
WHEREAS, In September 1922, Smyrna was sacked, and the
Greek and Armenian quarters were set on fire and destroyed by
Kemalist forces; tens of thousands of Smyrna's Greek and
Armenian inhabitants were then massacred, turning the pier of
Smyrna into a scene of death and desperation, forcing many to
jump to their deaths rather than be cut down by Kemal's
soldiers or consumed by the flames; and
WHEREAS, The remaining Christian inhabitants of Anatolia
were then forced to give up their homes, businesses, and their
ancient connection to the land in a forced exchange of
populations through the Lausanne Agreement, sanctioned by the
U.S. and western nations, in order to safeguard their lives
from future massacres; it marked the end of 3,000 years of
Greek presence and historic contributions to the western
world; and
WHEREAS, Silence is the final stage of genocide as it
erases all memory of the victims of the crime as if they never
existed; this silence can only encourage future genocides by
other rogue nations that feel unbound by international laws;
and
WHEREAS, In an historic 2007 resolution, the International

HR0870 - 4 - LRB103 41716 MST 74937 r
Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), representing hundreds
of the world's leading genocide scholars, affirmed the fact of
the genocide against the Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks
and Assyrians as comparable to the genocide of the Armenians;
and
WHEREAS, Acknowledgment of these past crimes should serve
as a deterrent to future aggressions by the Turkish government
and all other governments around the world; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we recognize the genocide of the Greeks of Pontos, Asia Minor,
and Eastern Thrace and urge the Turkish government to do the
same as a means of bringing closure to the descendants of the
victims of these genocides and preventing such atrocities in
the future; and be it further