Assyrian Democratic Movement - After The Fall of Baghdad

After The Fall of Baghdad

Yonadam Kanna is now the president of the party. He served on the temporary Iraqi Governing Council before it was disbanded in favor of the elected body formed after the January 2005 Iraqi elections.

The party's website, zowaa.org, describes it as "a democratic and political organization -- national and patriotic -- to defend our people and their legitimate rights and to struggle under the banner of free democratic Iraq." The site's declarations include calls for official recognition of the rights of Assyrians and "unity of our people under their several identities": Chaldean, Syriac, and Assyrian (various Christian denominations in the Assyrian demographic). The group supports the idea of a federal Iraq, and is on good relations with other Assyrian and Kurdish groups present in northern Iraq, as well as with Shi'a leaders in southern Iraq. The movement is also represented in the Kurdistan parliament. Party members and Assyrians in general have been the focus of some insurgent attacks in the time since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The party also operates Ashur TV and Ashur Radio and issues Bahra newspaper.