Protests in Syria after ‘old’ video shows attack on Alawite shrine
Al Jazeera
Thousands hit the streets as police impose curfews in four cities as a preventive measure.
Thousands of people have protested in several cities across Syria after a video circulates showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the north, a war monitor and witnesses say.
Syria’s new rulers said the video was “old” and “unknown groups” were behind the attack, saying “republishing” the video served to “stir up strife”, a day after hundreds protested in Damascus against the torching of a Christmas tree.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitor said “thousands of people” took to the streets on Wednesday with major demonstrations in the coastal cities of Tartous and Latakia, provinces that are the heartland of the Alawite minority, to which deposed longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad belongs.
SOHR also reported protests in the central city of Homs and Qardaha, al-Assad’s hometown.
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