The nation’s Christians concern persecution following the autumn of Bashar Assad’s authorities
Christians have held protests on the streets of Suqaylabiyah, Syria, after a gaggle of Islamist fighters torched a Christmas tree within the city earlier this week. The incident has stirred anger amongst native residents, who view the act as a deliberate assault on their group and non secular identification.
Islamist authorities in Damascus have attributed the arson to overseas jihadist components working inside the area, and have pledged to analyze and produce the perpetrators to justice.
Video posted on-line on Monday confirmed a gaggle of masked males beginning a fireplace on the base of the tree, which towered above a roundabout within the majority-Christian city. Unconfirmed studies declare that the lads prevented locals from extinguishing the blaze.
Inside hours, one other video circulated displaying an unidentified insurgent standing with a Christian priest subsequent to the tree, promising that it might be “utterly restored” by Christmas Eve. The insurgent claimed that eight overseas fighters had been behind the burning, and that they’d been arrested.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – a UK-based group aligned with the rebels – reported that the lads had been foreigners from the Ansar al Tawhid Islamist group.
Regardless of the unidentified insurgent pledging to revive the tree, lots of of Christians protested in Suqaylabiyah and Damascus on Monday and Tuesday. “If we’re not allowed to reside our Christian religion in our nation, as we used to, then we don’t belong right here anymore,” one demonstrator informed AFP.
“Syria is free, non-Syrians ought to go away,” a gaggle chanted in Damascus, referring to the overseas jihadists who swelled the ranks of the rebels throughout their profitable assault on the capital earlier this month.
Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a shock offensive within the northern Syrian provinces of Idlib and Aleppo late final month. After town of Aleppo fell inside days, the group superior south on Damascus, capturing the cities of Suqaylabiyah, Hama, and Homs alongside the best way earlier than they had been joined by US-armed Free Syrian Military (FSA) militants for a remaining push on the capital.
As his army stood down and insurgent forces entered town’s suburbs, former Syrian President Bashar Assad left for Russia, the place he has been granted asylum.
Underneath Assad, Christians and different non secular minorities had been allowed to overtly follow their religion. With HTS in cost, many now concern that they may face persecution.
HTS was fashioned in 2017 with the merger of Jhabat al-Nusra – a Syrian offshoot of Al-Qaeda – and different Islamist teams. Regardless of his historical past of violent Islamism, HTS chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has promised to respect the rights of Syria’s minorities. Nonetheless, al-Jolani has stopped in need of pledging to particularly safeguard Christians.
”[HTS] haven’t introduced something on stopping our celebrations… however there are Christians who don’t wish to exit to have a good time as a result of they concern that they could get attacked from rogue armed people,” a protester in Damascus informed AFP.
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