Live ticker for the Middle East & Syria: Christians protest in opposition to the burning of Christmas bushes in Syria | EUROtoday

On Dec 24, 2024

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The burning of a Christmas tree in central Syria sparked demonstrations in Christian communities in and round Damascus on Christmas Eve. “We demand the rights of Christians,” the demonstrators chanted as they marched by the streets of the capital in direction of the headquarters of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Bab Charki. Some of them carried picket crosses, others hoisted the three-star Syrian independence flag that was adopted by the brand new rulers in Damascus.

There is loads of “injustice against Christians” “under the guise of individual cases.”mentioned a protest participant to the AFP information company. “If we are not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as was the case before, then we no longer have a place here,” he continued.

The protests had been sparked by the unfold of a video on on-line networks exhibiting masked fighters setting hearth to the Christmas tree within the predominantly Christian-Orthodox city of Sukailabija close to Hama. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters had been foreigners from the jihadist group Ansar al-Tawhid.

In one other video that’s extensively circulated on on-line networks, there’s a non secular one Representatives of the HTS militia, which has been main since Assad’s fall to seewhich assured native residents that the perpetrators weren’t Syrian and could be punished. “The tree will be put back up and lit up by tomorrow morning.”he defined alongside clergymen and to the shouts of residents.

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/krieg-in-nahost/liveticker-zu-nahost-syrien-christen-protestieren-in-syrien-gegen-verbrennung-von-weihnachtsbaum-faz-19972506.html