Urgent.. Angry demonstrations in Damascus to protest against setting fire to the Christmas tree
Syrian demonstrators gathered from different neighborhoods in Damascus, last night, to express their discontent and fears, after a video clip spread on virtual social networks, showing masked men setting fire to a Christmas tree in the city of Suqaylabiya, which has an Orthodox Christian majority in Hama Governorate. According to what Agence France-Presse reported.
The demonstrators marched through the streets of Damascus towards the headquarters of the Patriarchate. Greek Orthodox people in Bab Sharqi, chanting “We want Christian rights,” and carrying wooden crosses, while others raised the independence flag.
One of the demonstrators told Agence France-Presse: “ “We came down because there is a lot of sectarianism and injustice against Christians, under the name of individual actions.”
He added: “Either we live in a country that respects Our Christianity is safe in this country as we were before, or open the door to church asylum for us so that we can leave abroad.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated that the fighters who burned the tree were foreigners and belonged to the “Ansar al-Tawhid” faction.
In another video clip, which also spread on virtual media, a cleric representing “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” appears, He addresses the residents of the region by saying that the perpetrators of this act “are not Syrians.” He pledged to punish them.
The Muslim cleric, along with Christian clerics and amid chanting of Christian slogans by the residents of the area, confirmed that the tree would be restored and illuminated by the morning, which is what actually happened.
He was the leader of “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.” Ahmed Al-Sharaa, which along with other armed factions overthrew the former president of the regime, Bashar al-Assad, on December 8, announced more than once that he would work to dissolve all the factions and annex them to the Ministry of Defense. He also stressed that “there are no weapons outside the state.” In the new Syria.
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