Christen in Aleppo in Sorge

Nachdem die islamistischen Milizen von HTS Aleppo eingenommen haben, stellte sich umgehend die Frage, wie sie mit Christen und anderen Minderheiten in der Stadt umgehen würden.

Bislang, so scheint es, hat die HTS aus der Vergangenheit gelernt und versucht, dass es zu keinen Übergriffen kommt. Auch wenn dies bislang der Fall zu sein scheint, betrachten die Christen Aleppos und anderer Gebiete in Norsyrien, die kürzlich unter Kontrolle der HTS und ihrer Verbündeter gekommen sind, mit Sorge:

Christians in Aleppo, the major Syrian city retaken from President Bashar Al Assad's regime by extremist-led rebels, are starting to “decorate our neighbourhoods with Christmas trees", the city's lead bishop said amid speculation of the status of minorities.

Rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), a US-designated terrorist organisation that has sought to present a more moderate image, is leading a coalition of opposition fighters in the most significant challenge to the Assad regime in years. (...)

The community's Christians were initially “fearful”, said Bishop Hanna Jallouf, the ordained bishop and Apostolic Vicar of Aleppo of the Latins. 

Speaking from Aleppo, he gave a virtual briefing to reporters in Washington on Tuesday, describing how the city's religious minorities initially refrained from “leaving their homes” in the first hours of the shock operation by the extremist-led rebel forces. But with reassurances from HTS that Christians would be safe, religious minorities quickly re-emerged into public life.

“I'm excited to say that both the Catholic and Orthodox and other Christian sects' celebrations, whether it is St Barbara, New Year's and Christmas is going as normal,” Bishop Jallouf said. “We've already started to decorate our neighbourhoods with Christmas trees and other sort of things for the upcoming holidays … We feel that things are going OK.”

There has been growing concern that HTS control in Syria could endanger Christian minorities. In its 2023 country report on international religious freedom, the US State Department noted that “human rights organisations continued to report HTS committed abuses against members of religious and ethnic minority groups, including the seizure of properties belonging to displaced Christians".

Sehr lesenswert hierzu auch ein Beitrag von Fadi Hallisso im News Lines Magazine, in dem er das Dilemma eines christlichen Oppositionellen gegen das Assad Regime beschreibt:

I was in awe — I find it difficult to put into words the plethora of feelings I am experiencing. On the one hand, my dear city, which I have been forbidden from visiting since July 2011, has been liberated from the regime that detained and tortured both my brother and sister, forcing them to eventually leave the country for good. But on the other hand, can I really call this an act of liberation, knowing that leading the attack was a force designated as a terrorist group? 

For many fellow Syrians, the city was liberated from the worst despotic regime they could imagine. Hundreds of thousands of the city’s inhabitants who were exiled from their neighborhoods in the eastern parts of the city eight years ago can finally return home. It feels like liberation for hundreds of political prisoners whose videos of escaping the dozens of detention centers were flooding the internet within a few hours. The tears of joy on their faces and the cries of disbelief from their family members speak eloquently of the suffering of hundreds of thousands of disappeared Syrians. 

However, beneath all this lingers a dark reality. The alliance of rebel groups that entered the city is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the latest rebrand of what was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda. This fact made me full of doubt about the kind of future that awaits my city. 
As a member of the small Christian community of Aleppo, I know firsthand how terrified the Christian community in the city must be of these latest developments. This same fear turned me into a pariah within my community back in 2011, when I dared to publicly express my support for the uprising against the Assad regime, and the need for a transition toward democracy. It is no secret that the majority of Christians in Syria, and especially in Aleppo, were not in favor of the uprising in 2011. They argued that it would not bring about a democratic Syria, but only replace the existing government with a more radical Islamic regime that would threaten their way of life and potentially chase them out of their homes. Have they been right all along? Or could one argue that the fear that paralyzed them and prevented their involvement in what was happening became a self-fulfilling prophecy?" (...)

Today, after 13 years, I cannot blame the Christians of Aleppo if they are terrified. Throughout the years of the conflict the main opposition bodies, except in the northeastern parts of Syria, did not produce a single viable or reliable example of governance. The northwest was not exactly the best advertisement for life under the opposition’s armed groups. The political branch of the opposition had no control whatsoever over the armed groups or their warlords. They could not prevent the looting of properties and the violations committed against the Kurds in Afrin nor the persecution of the Druze in Idlib. These armed groups were repeatedly involved in conflicts among themselves over spoils, which resulted in the deaths of many innocent bystanders. One can only imagine the terror among my fellow Aleppines of anticipating such clashes in their streets and neighborhoods. (...)

In my opinion, the only way to reassure Christians in these circumstances is for Aleppo to be run by a civilian administration of the city’s notables after all armed groups retreat from the city, and for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its so-called “salvation government” to understand that the city’s Muslims, Christians and Kurds have lived together for centuries and know how to manage their daily life without any custodian.