LATAKIA: Several hundred people protested on Tuesday in Syria’s coastal city of Latakia in the country’s Alawite heartland to protest recent attacks against the minority community, AFP correspondents said.
Since longtime ruler Bashar Assad — himself an Alawite — was toppled by an Islamist alliance last December, the community has been the target of attacks, and hundreds of people were killed in sectarian massacres in the area in March.
Protesters in Latakia shouted slogans including “The Syrian people are one” and “To the whole world, listen to us, the Alawites will not bend.”
Security forces were deployed in the city but did not intervene.
“We are one united people. We want armed factions in the region to leave, justice for our martyrs on the coast, and the release of our prisoners... We don’t know what they are accused of,” said Joumana, 58, a lawyer, who declined to provide her family name.
