On December 23rd in Syria’s capital, Damascus, hundreds of people protested in Christian neighborhoods after a group of Islamist rebels, called the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, burned down a Christmas tree in the Christian town of Al-Suqaylabiyah. The purpose of the rebels burning down the Christmas tree remains unknown. The protestors saw this as an act of religious discrimination to Christians, and expressed disapproval by walking through neighborhoods with wooden crosses. The rebel group brought down the Syrian dictator, Basharr al-Assad, three weeks before Christmas day. The Islamist rebel group gained immense power by taking down the Syrian government, but the rebels haven’t done, or demanded, anything with their new powers
The protests were relatively small,as they were restricted to Damascus, but they protest expanded outside of Damascus after a video was broadcasted online. Anyone that had access to the Internet was able to view the video, as the video was brought to the attention of many news reporters. The video showed masked men from the Islamist rebel group igniting fires at the base of the Christmas tree in the public Christian town of Al-Suqaylabiyah. The identity of the rebel group members remains unknown.
After the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group overthrew Syria’s dictator on December 8th, the rebels struck fear into the minority communities of Damascus, as the community worried that their religious freedom would be limited under a new leader. However, the rebels reassured that the minorities like Christians, Druse, and Alwaites religious freedom would be protected.
Despite protecting the religious freedom of Druses, Alwaites, and Christians, the community wasn’t safe from the rebels’ attacks. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor that tracks Syria’s conflicts, reported attacks against Syrian minority groups and gun fires in a Greek Orthodox Church in Hama. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights blamed western foreign fighters for the Christmas tree burning because there were many fighters that joined the rebel group which helped the rebels gain more manpower to cause conflicts like overthrowing the government and harming civilians. The rebel group was able to gain manpower by recruiting foreign fighters that had the same ideological motivations as them .
If the rebel group continues taking over Syria, it could lead to the deaths of innocent civilians and [the destruction of Syria as a country.