Srood Maqdasy

‘‘We’ve been here as an ethnicity for 6,000 years and as Christians for 1,700 years,’’ says Dr. Srood Maqdasy, a member of the Kurdish Parliament. ‘‘We have our own culture, language and tradition. If we live within other communities, all of this will be dissolved within two generations.’’

Srood Salem Matti Maqdasy is an Iraqi-Assyrian physician, politician, and a member of the Kurdistan Regional Government Parliament. Maqdasy is one of just eleven representatives elected to represent minority groups in Iraqi Kurdistan's 111-member assembly. Maqdasy represents an Assyrian-led political party named Sons of Mesopotamia (Bnay Nahrain), and was first elected to the parliament in 2013. He is currently one of five Assyrians serving in the assembly. Maqdasy was formerly a member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement.

In 2013, Maqdasy resigned from the ADM, along with a number of the party's leaders and members, including some co-founders of the ADM. He was part of the formation of the new political party Sons of Mesopotamia, or Abnaa Al-Nahrain, which they felt embodied a new vision. Maqdasy was elected to serve in the Kurdistan Regional Government Parliament in 2013 representing Abnaa Al-Nahrain.

Maqdasy became involved in political work when he joined the Assyrian Democratic Movement in 1997. He held various positions in the organization's Erbil branch. In 2007, he was elected to serve as the head of the fifth conference of the ADM in Duhok, and three years later in 2010, was elected to serve as a member of the party's oversight committee during its seventh conference in Baghdad.

Maqdasy says he pursued a career in politics to be an advocate for his Assyrian (also called Chaldeans and Syriacs) people who had suffered from neglect and marginalization since the early 1900s. He stated he believes the national identity and ethnic rights of Assyrians have been denied in Iraq, despite the fact that they are the indigenous people of the land.