Activists circulated on the evening of 29 December 2025 a video clip documenting an assault of a sectarian nature, showing supporters of the interim authority stopping a child belonging to the Alawite sect and asking him to recite the Shahada, before proceeding to beat and humiliate him.
The victim is Hamza Tammam Hassan, a ninth-grade student belonging to the Alawite sect. Hamza works selling bread in the Qudsaya area in the Damascus countryside to help support his family, amid his father’s suffering from cancer.
According to what was shown in the video footage and circulating testimonies, the assault occurred while Hamza was returning from work, when a number of individuals intercepted him and asked him about his sectarian affiliation. When he replied, “I am Alawite, and at least I pray,” he was forced to attempt to pronounce the Shahada and was subjected to beating and humiliation because of his affiliation, amid demands by the attackers that he renounce his identity.
This incident comes in the context of escalating tensions and acts of violence of a sectarian nature witnessed in several areas of Syria on the same day. In the city of Latakia, assaults targeting property and individuals from the Alawite sect were recorded on the evening of 29 December. Circulating video clips showed attacks carried out by supporters of the interim authority, represented by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” using bladed weapons and sticks, while chanting sectarian slogans and insults, smashing commercial shops, and assaulting young men and passersby.
On the morning of 30 December 2025, additional clips were circulated showing the smashing of the windows of a large number of cars parked on the streets of Latakia.
Against the backdrop of these developments, Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and the diaspora, called in an audio recording dated 29 December on members of the Alawite sect to remain in their homes and not be drawn into civil fighting.
The assaults were not limited to Latakia, as acts of violence and rioting were recorded in other areas with an Alawite majority, including the city of Jableh, where acts of vandalism against property belonging to members of the sect were documented, and in the city of Masyaf reports emerged of the killing of a young man on a sectarian basis. In Damascus as well, specifically in the Jabal al-Ward area, an attack carried out by armed groups targeted shops belonging to Alawite citizens.
These incidents shed light on the escalation of violations driven by sectarian motives and the targeting of civilians, including children, amid a state of security breakdown and increasing societal tension.
