Major setback for erection of Sayfo genocide monument in the Netherlands. Comité Sayfo 1915 loses lawsuit against City of Enschede

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands — It has always been a great desire for the Syriac community in the Netherlands to have a public monument at the site where the Sayfo Commemoration is now being held, annually on June 15, in the centrally located Volkspark in Enschede. However, a Dutch court has now dismissed the claim by the Stichting Comité 1915, or Comité Sayfo 1915, that the City of Enschede made an unconditional commitment to erect such a monument and that it must honor this unconditional commitment. The court also ordered the Comité to pay the incurred legal costs of the City. 

The Comité Sayfo 1915, which organizes the annual commemoration, applied for a Sayfo monument in the Volkspark back in 2022. This was received positively by the mayor of Enschede on condition that the monument would receive broad support among the Syriac community’s civil organizations in the Enschede. After a long and difficult process of negotiations between various Syriac lay and religious organizations about the shape of the monument and its inscription, the mayor withdrew his commitment to the erection of the Sayfo monument in the Volkspark. 

The mayor justified his decision by saying that broad support had not been reached. The Comité Sayfo 1915 countered and said that it had done everything possible to make the negotiations succeed, but that the mayor’s decision was more based on fear after strong opposition from the local Turkish community and the Turkish government. The Comité then filed a lawsuit against the municipality, which it has now lost. The court met the City of Enschede in its defense that the commitment was not unconditional, that the condition of broad support had not been met, and that had there been an unconditional or formal commitment, the municipality would still be allowed to weigh the circumstances when it concerns the public interest.

All in all, a major setback for the erection of the Sayfo monument in the Volkspark. But the Syriac community in Enschede, which numbers some 13 thousand, remains committed to honor the victims of the Sayfo Genocide with a local monument.