Janice Kortkamp — Treatment of Christians in Assad's Syria vs in US-backed 'Rebel' Areas

You won't read this is the corporate media since it contradicts the narrative. Lots of photos. Reprinted from We hold these truths, What About Christians In Syria (3 Apr 2018).

Russia Insider
Treatment of Christians in Assad's Syria vs in US-backed 'Rebel' Areas
Janice Kortkamp

Tom O'Connor — Syrian Christians Celebrate Christmas Festivities In Aleppo

Social media users this week shared pictures and videos of Christians celebrating Christmas festivities in western Aleppo for the first time in at least four years. The images emerged as the Syrian army asserted control over the city's last rebel-held eastern pockets.

Accounts, many of which belonged to supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, posted photographs and footage of Syrians lighting Christmas trees in a square in western Aleppo. Celebrations were reportedly interrupted by a bombing in the city's Aziziyeh neighborhood. However, no injuries were reported. After years of conflict and continued reports of violence on both sides following an uneasy ceasefire reached between the Syrian government and the opposition, Christians expressed their hope that this holiday season would bring stability.

"Despite the harsh conditions the people of Aleppo are enduring, [for both] Christians and Muslims, Christmas brings the hope for peace that we have missed for the last five years. Although many churches have been destroyed in Aleppo, the bells of the other churches will sound and hope they bring us peace," Jesuit Father Ziad Hilal told Christian Post. "Christians are preparing themselves for Christmas in their churches and associations, along with our compatriots in Syria, so that the sound of violence overcomes the deep sound of faith that each believer enjoys — God is with us."...

Yahoo News
Syrian Christians Celebrate Christmas Festivities In Aleppo
Tom O'Connor, International Business Times

This year, many people in the liberated city of Aleppo are celebrating for the first time since the war began. RT’s Lizzie Phelan talked with residents of the war-ravaged city now recovering from its wounds.... 

Video and pictures.

RT

War-torn Aleppo celebrates Christmas, shares stories of joy & loss with RT (EXCLUSIVE

This morning, the local newspaper reported that Christmas was being celebrated in sections of Mosul liberated from ISIS, but there was no mention that Aleppo had been liberated from Al Qaeda and was celebrating Christmas for the first time in five years.

None of the Western media (left, center, and right) bothered to show footage of X-mas celebrations in Aleppo. Why is that? Is that considered "pro-regime propaganda"? Why is that reality bothersome to Western media? What is about those scenes that Western media want to suppress? I mean the rigid propaganda line about Syria in Western media supersedes even the traditional sectarian Christian bias of Western media coverage of the Middle East.

Angry Arab News Service
X-mas scenes from Aleppo
Assad Abu Khalil | Professor of Political Science, California State University, Stanislaus

But even then the celebration in government-controlled West Aleppo was disrupted.

Orthodox Cognate Page

Explosion disrupts Christmas celebrations in Aleppo

UPDATE

Reuters reports on on Christmas in Aleppo, although Reuters apparently has no one on the ground there.

Christians in Aleppo celebrated under a giant Christmas tree lit up for the first time in five years, hailing what many described as the return of peace to a city that came back under full government control last week.

Reuters
Aleppo Christians celebrate holiday in hope peace has returned

Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman

Aymenn Al-Tamimi — Usud Al-Cherubim: A Pro-Assad Christian Militia

History of the Syrian Christian militia fighting for Assad

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Syria Comment
Usud Al-Cherubim: A Pro-Assad Christian Militia
Aymenn Al-Tamimi

Charlotte D'Ornellas — At Notre Dame de Paris, a few choice words from the Bishop of Aleppo

Visiting France on the occasion of the Night of Witnesses organized each year by Aid to the Church in Need, the Greek Melkite Archbishop of Aleppo, Mgr Jeanbart, had a heavy heart. After describing the dramatic situation facing Aleppans, the Syrian bishop addressed the audience of journalists there:

"The European media have continued to choke the lives of those suffering in Syria and have even helped to justify what is happening in our country by passing on reports without ever checking," he began, lambasting press agencies including agencies created during the war "put up by the armed opposition," like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that uncontradicted source for Western media.

"You have to understand that between the Islamic State and the Syrian government, our choice is quickly made. One can condemn the regime for some things, but you never tried to be objective," he further accused.

Asked whether he could explain his position to the French authorities, Archbishop Jeanbart said he had tried before, only to be told that he had to be "less critical."

For him, however, the West has continued to silence the exactions of the armed opposition, all the while damning the Syrian government and its president. "Assad has many faults, but imagine, he has also qualities," he explained, "schools were free, as hospitals, mosques as churches paid no tax, but be honest, what other government in the region does such things? Remember this, too: if we prefer to support the government, it is because we fear the establishment of a Sunni theocracy that would deprive us of the right to live on our own land."….

Fort Russ
At Notre Dame de Paris, a few choice words from the Bishop of Aleppo
Charlotte D'Ornellas, Boulevard Voltaire, January 29, 2016
Translated from French by Tom Winter, February 25, 2016