“We want democracy, not a religious state,” chanted the demonstrators gathered in a square in the Syrian capital, while the country is now ruled by the coalition led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Published on 19/12/2024 23:26
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Hundreds of people demonstrated on Thursday, December 19 in Damascus, for democracy and women’s rights in the new Syria, for the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the takeover of the coalition led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). “We want democracy, not a religious state”, “Religion belongs to God and the nation to all”, “Syria, a free and secular state”chanted the demonstrators, gathered in the emblematic Umayyad Square, in the center of Damascus, noted AFP journalists.
Damascus fell on December 8 to a coalition of armed groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group. President Bashar al-Assad has fled to Moscow. The new authorities affirmed that they would respect freedoms and promised to “guarantee the rights of all” but many have concerns about the policy they will pursue. HTS claims to have broken with jihadism but the group remains classified as a “terrorist” movement by several Western countries, including the United States.
Only a few armed fighters, some hooded, were present at the demonstration site, wandering among the protesters. One of them claimed that “the Syrian revolution triumphed by force of arms”before being heckled by demonstrators who shouted “down with the rule of the military”.
