Syria's new government has publicly claimed it will respect minorties, despite pushing for fundamentalist rule over non-Muslims and carrying out sectarian killings against Alawites
News Desk - The Cradle
A leaked image of the circular was posted on social media on 20 February.
If approved, the order will result in the imprisonment of non-Muslims or non-religious Muslims who eat in public spaces during Ramadan. It will also force restaurants to close during the 30 days of fasting, financially harming their owners and employees.
Since the December takeover of Damascus by militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, Salafist-extremist activists have sought to promote and impose fundamentalist Islamic norms on the country.
In January, activists from Idlib governorate, the HTS stronghold, launched a nationwide campaign to promote wearing the niqab, a form of Islamic dress that covers a woman's body, head, hands, and face.
Placards have been placed on mosques throughout the country encouraging women to go beyond wearing just a headscarf (hijab) to cover their hair.
Gazan-born Syria-based Salafist cleric Al-Zubayr Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Ghazzi shared a photoset online showing women wearing the niqab as well as a group of young girls in headscarves gathered in a mosque in the Hama countryside.
Ghazzi reported that “hundreds of sisters wore the sharia-based hijab (niqab).” He added that at locals' request, “large women's meetings” were held in the area, and “hundreds of women committed to wearing the full sharia-based hijab, observing their prayers, obeying Allah, and raising their children and families according to what Allah commands in our great religion.”
Similar events were organized in Al-Qusayr, Hama City, Aleppo, and towns in Ghouta in the Damascus suburbs.
The creeping Islamization of Syria under the new HTS government, led by former Islamic State in Iraq commander Ahmad al-Sharaa, is making Christians and other minorities increasingly fearful about the future.
HTS-affiliated militants have carried out a string of massacres against Alawites since coming to power in December, including the killing of 15 Alawites in the village of Arzeh near Hama earlier this month.
Maurice Amsih, a Syriac Orthodox Bishop from Hasakah Governorate in northeast Syria, told AP on 21 February, “Sunnis are our brothers, and they are the majority in Syria today. But we are against the establishment of Islamic Sharia for all components. We and all the people in the country want them to treat us in a human way.”
Maria Hanna, a civil society activist from Hasaka, told AP, “The fall of (former Syrian president Bashar) Assad was a joy. But this joy was followed by fear of an unknown future. There is an unclear situation with a hazy future. We don't know what's going to happen next.”
Hanna and Bishop Amsih made their comments as northeast Syria's remaining Christians prepare to mark the 10th anniversary of an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attack on over 30 villages along the Khabur River.
On 23 February 2015, dozens of Christians were killed or wounded, and over 200 were taken hostage by the extremist group. Churches were blown up, and thousands of people fled, the Washington Post reported.
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