by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Hundreds of Christians in Syria took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the destruction of a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama, Politico reports. The tree was burned down just over two weeks after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 8.
Highlighting Syrian Christians’ concerns that non-Islamic religious freedom may not be respected under the next government, the protest was sparked after a video was posted on social media showing the tree being burned down by masked fighters on Monday evening.
“We demand the rights of Christians,” protestors chanted. “If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” a demonstrator told AFP.
Denying their involvement in the tree burning, the HTS told protestors that the fighters responsible were foreigners, BBC news reports. According to the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, these fighters were from the Islamist group Ansar al-Tawhid. “Syria is free, non-Syrians should leave,” a number of protestors then began chanting.
Notably, another video showed an HTS religious leader holding up a cross as a sign of solidarity and telling protestors that the tree would be restored and lit up by morning, Barron’s reported.
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