Damascus residents, especially owners of bars, pubs and nightclubs, fear that the seizure of power in Syria by the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) could lead to a nationwide alcohol ban. The Kurdish media Rudaw reported that they are concerned. on wednesday.
HTS is a jihadist terrorist organization that has been at war with the fallen dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime for years, initially in its predecessor Jabhat al-Nusra. President Bashar al-Assad has been fighting a civil war with HTS and similar Syrian rebel groups since 2011, but his decision to brutally crack down on political dissidents protesting against his then-10-year-old regime has brought the situation into full swing. It escalated to war. In the larger context of this war, numerous actors, including nation-states, terrorist organizations, and separatist militias, fought their own battles, often independent of the larger war between Assad and his adversaries.
President Assad fled Syria on December 7-8 as HTS besieged Damascus. While widely recognized as a brutal dictator, person in charge Despite massacres, mass torture, and other atrocities, Assad did not rule as an Islamic fundamentalist. He allowed women to exist in society and minority religious groups to practice their faith as long as their followers did not criticize his regime. As a result, Damascus has long had an important nightlife community, which is now under threat under the HTS's new rules.
Damascus bar owners and people in the nightlife industry said Ledoux clarified this week that HTS does not directly intervene in their operations. On the contrary, for now they are assuring management that their top priority is to avoid further damage to Syria's devastated economy. Nevertheless, pubs and liquor stores were reportedly closed for the first four days after Assad fled the country, and even after they reopened, locals were forced to close public spaces to avoid launching a campaign of punishment by jihadists. He is afraid of being seen drinking alcohol in public. haram Action. (haram Islam generally prohibits drinking alcohol.
“In general, there is anxiety about whether the traditions or the nature of the work will be accepted or rejected. Nothing is certain as of today, so people are reluctant,” said the bar owner, identified as Judd. told Ludo. He pointed out that this hesitation was not the result of a direct alcohol ban on the part of HTS terrorists.
“Last Thursday, as bar owners, we reached out to our neighborhood leaders to ask if we would be allowed to open our bars and return to normal life,” Judd continued. “They told us that there is no law banning bars and the situation is normal. Based on this, we decided to reopen bars and fortunately customers are gradually returning.”
busy Last week, the owner of another bar in Damascus's nightlife area told France 24 that he approached the HTS terrorist and asked him about the fate of his business after word spread that he was banning alcohol.
“I told them I run a bar and would like to host a party and serve alcoholic beverages,” the owner said. “They said, ‘Yes, please open it, no problem at all.’ You have the right to work and live your life as before.”
This approval did not give confidence to bar patrons that they would be free to drink and party. The owner told France 24 that he held a “reopening” party as soon as he received approval from HTS, but only a few people came to celebrate.
“The people who went to the party were confused and afraid. They were at the party, but they were not happy,” he lamented. “But if there's any reassurance…it's Christmas, the month of celebration, and you'll find the whole world staying up late and being happy.”
Syria has a sizable Christian population, which was tolerated by President Assad, a Shiite Alawite Muslim. President Assad often conducted extensive propaganda display He attended Christmas events across the country to contrast his rule with the possible imposition of a Sunni Islamist state. Christian communities and international Christian persecution experts say the rise of an Islamist government controlled by domestic terrorist organizations could lead to mass atrocities similar to those that occurred during the rise of the Islamic State caliphate. has expressed alarm that there is.
Jeff King, president of the International Christian Concern (ICC), told Breitbart News shortly after Assad's fall that “the new insurgency will be deadly, dangerous and a disaster for Christians.” He described HTS as “radical Islamists.” They “rebranded themselves to obscure their true nature and past.”
The anonymous HTS terrorists told Agence France-Presse (AFP) last week that they were not interested in banning alcohol because there were “bigger issues to deal with.” Head of HTS, Ahmed Al Shara (previously nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) is even more hesitant to declare that he does not interfere with drinking. Asked in an interview with the BBC this week whether he would ban alcohol, he insisted there were “many issues” he could not discuss because they were “legal matters” over which he had no authority. As many fear, that power will be given to radical Islamic clerics, who will impose free reign. sharia About the population as a whole.
Local residents in Damascus have already started organizing to oppose the potential enforcement order. sharia. Hundreds of people flooded Umayyad Square on Thursday to demand equal rights for women, with an HTS spokesperson saying women were “biologically” incapable of practicing law or working in the Ministry of Defense. I particularly objected to the statements made by the person in charge.
