Several demonstrations broke out in Christian neighborhoods of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama, in central Syria, an AFP journalist said.
“We are demanding the rights of Christians,” the demonstrators chanted in unison as they marched through the streets of Damascus, towards the headquarters of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Bab Sharqi.
Flowing spontaneously from different neighborhoods, they gathered to express their discontent and fears more than two weeks after the takeover of power by an armed coalition led by Islamists who deposed Bashar al-Assad.
The overthrown president posed himself as protector of minorities in a Sunni majority country.
“We are going down, because there is a lot of sectarianism, injustice against Christians, under the cover of “isolated cases”, Georges declared to AFP. If we are not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as was the case, then we no longer have our place here,” he added.
Some of them carried wooden crosses, others hoisted the three-star Syrian independence flag, adopted by the new authorities.
These demonstrations broke out after the broadcast on social networks of a video where hooded fighters set fire to the Christmas tree in the predominantly Orthodox Christian town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters were foreigners from the jihadist group Ansar al-Tawhid.
In another video that has gone viral on social media, a religious leader from the ruling radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTC) is seen addressing local residents, saying that the perpetrators of this act are “not Syrians” and promising them that they will be punished.
“The tree will be restored and lit by tomorrow morning,” he assured, alongside priests and to the cheers of residents who chanted Christian slogans.
Unifying the country fragmented by years of bloody war and where there are numerous factions with divergent allegiances and several religious minorities remains a challenge for HTC.
This former branch of Al-Qaeda, which claims to have renounced jihadism and adopted a more moderate discourse, knows it is being questioned about how it will treat Christian minorities, Alawites and Kurds in particular.
HTC nevertheless finds itself confronted with the presence of numerous foreign fighters, mostly from Central Asia, who had joined its ranks or those of other Islamist and jihadist factions during the conflict after 2011 and continue to pose a major challenge for HTC. ‘organization.