Demonstrators took to the streets across Syria on Tuesday to protest the burning of a Christmas tree, two weeks after the dramatic toppling of dictator Bashar Assad.
The protests emerged after a video spread on social media showing two masked men setting a Christmas tree on fire on Monday evening in the in the main square of the Suqaylabiyah, a Christian-majority town in the province of Hama.
“We demand the rights of Christians,” protesters chanted as they marched through the streets of Damascus. “If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here any more,” a demonstrator told AFP.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters were foreigners from the Islamist group Ansar al-Tawhid.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main Islamist faction which led the uprising that toppled President Assad on Dec. 8, said foreign fighters had been detained over the incident, BBC reported.
Another video footage following the incident showed a religious leader from the ruling HTS holding up a cross in sign of solidarity and promising the crowd that tree would be restored by morning.
The protests come a little over two weeks since the toppling of Assad’s government on Dec. 8.
European leaders have welcomed the end of Assad’s regime as a “positive development” for Syria and vowed to work together with the new leadership to protect the rights of Syrians and prevent terrorism from rising in the area.
