Yonatan Bet-Kolya This is Me

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1. 1. www.zindamagazine.com

   www.zindamagazine.com/ThisWeek - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/12/2008   Last Visited: 5/8/2008

   "Christians and Zoroastrians leave because of unemployment, the bad economy, but these problems affect all Iranians," said Yonatan Betkolia, an Assyrian Christian leader and member of Iran's parliament who holds the United States responsible for his community's decline.
   ...
   Betkolia, the Assyrian Christian parliament member, said he and his co-religionists were "freer in Iran than our Muslim brothers."

2. 2. www.zindamagazine.com

   www.zindamagazine.com/html/arc - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/22/2000   Last Visited: 5/8/2008

   Furthermore, unconfirmed reports from Iran indicate that the AUA representative in Iran, Mr. Yonatan Bet-Kolia, has won the seat of the Assyrian Representative to Majlis.
   
   Since the May 1997 election of the President Khatami, the AUA has been working toward strengthening its political dominance among the Assyrian constituency of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

3. 3. October 13, 1997

   www.zindamagazine.com/html/arc - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 12/5/2003

   (ZNDA: Tehran) Two weeks after the publication of a 38-page report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch in which Iran's Islamic government is said to be engaged in flagrant persecution of the country's religious and ethnic minorities especially evangelical Christians and Baha'is, an interview was conducted by the officials of Iran's media group with Yonatan Bet-Kolya, the head of the Assyrian Council of Tehran (Motva'd Tehran) and the Assyrian Universal Alliance's representative in Asia. Bet-Kolya calls the Islamic Republic of Iran "ideal for the Assyrian Society." He adds that "for centuries the Assyrians had lived in this vast land and for religious reasons, they had long wished that a government would come to power which would be on the basis of religion." He also stated that "the culmination of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the establishment of Islamic Republic of Iran based on Divine Law and Justice materialized the long cherished wishes of the Assyrian community." He pointed out that under the Divine Law of Islamic Iran, the Assyrians have the opportunity to freely practice their religious rites. Bet Kolya notes that "under Islamic Iran, Assyrians have full freedom in the practice of their culture and religion. They face no form of restrictions what-so-ever and that the Assyrians have been able to preserve their identity, their language, culture and religion in Iran, whereas the Assyrians in Arabic countries neither know their language nor have their true identity as Assyrian community." ZENDA was unable to confirm the validity of the information received at presstime. Bet-Kolya, a contraversial figure in the arena of Assyrian politics in Iran due to his past involvement with Iran's intelligence community, was a guest of the Assyian American National Federation at this year's "Detroit Convention."