samer khazzoum @sa92kh - Twitter Profile

Here’s the context of what sparked the violence in Syria and why the media framing is wrong: Syrian translators who we work with told us that the media framing of this massacre as Assad loyalists vs. new government is not at all accurate. The people targeted belong to various minority groups including Christians and Alawites who live in the coastal towns. Yes this happens to be the same Muslim minority sect that Assad belongs to. The attackers though did not discriminate between innocent Alawites, killing women and children too. The Alawites are often not considered ��real” Muslims - just a deviant sect. I am told that this recent spate of events started when HTS police went to the Alawite village in Lattakia to arrest someone who was accused of writing negative posts online against Jolani's government. They started kicking the accused and mistreated him which made the villigers furious. The villagers fought back and it all broke out from there. This single incident capped off three months of ongoing injustice and mistreatment at the hands of HTS. This is a group that pushes women to wear the burka (which the Alawites don’t do) and tried to forcefully convert them to the "real" Islam (Sunni). As it is Ramadan now, the Alawites stick out like a sore thumb because fasting for them is optional and HTS has been hounding and harassing anyone who isn’t fasting. Since coming into power, thousands have been kicked out of their jobs by HTS. Alawites are not permitted to join the new police or army just because of their identity. So all of this resentment has been brewing for a while. This is the group that the Western media such as the BBC lauded as reformers and moderates. Be skeptical of media framing of any stories coming out of Syria because HTS is backed by Qatar, i.e. Al Jazeera.

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