A number of demonstrations took place across Syria and the Middle East this week, protesting French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments on the right to mock religion following the beheading of a teacher who had shown his students caricatures of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed. Depictions of the prophet are prohibited under Islam, and offend many.
Pro-Turkey militia groups and jihadists in northern Syria arranged several protests in areas under their control, most notably in Sari Kani, Afrin and Idlib.
According to a number of photos and videos circulated on social media, several ISIS flags were spotted at the protests in Sari Kani. A poster at the same protest read, “with the help of Allah, we will cut the tongue that trades on the Prophet of Allah.”
Sari Kani is a Kurdish city, invaded by Turkey and its Syrian proxies during the code-named Operation Peace Spring in October 2019. It was previously under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The protests, which took place in downtown Sari Kani, consisted of some hundred men and children. They also burnt the flag of France and shouted slogans against President Macron.
SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi voiced his support for the French leader following the global backlash to his comments.
"French President Emmanuel Macron helped protect Muslims from the Islamic State and played a major role in defeating the organization and protecting human values," tweeted the commander in French on Monday.
"By insulting him, [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip ] Erdogan, who supported the Islamic State, does not express the opinion of Muslims and the interests of the Islamic world, but rather uses the Muslim religion for his personal interests," he added in a separate tweet.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that similar protests to those in Sari Kani also took place in SDF-controlled Deir ez-Zor, but were dispersed by the SDF.
ISIS controlled swaths of Syrian land between 2014 and 2019, but it was territorially defeated in March 2019 by the SDF with the support of the Global Coalition after its last bastion, Baghouz, was liberated.
