(22 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – overnight 15/16 May 2025
1. Man standing behind a bar with juice boxes on display
2. Shop that sells alcohol displaying juice and soft drinks in window
3. Various of women at shop that sells alcohol
4. Bars in Bab Sharqi area
5. Entrance to Soul bar
6. Various of DJ playing music
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Alaa Saloum, Soul bar co-owner:
“When the (Assad regime) fell, bars stopped working, after about a month we reopened and started working again and people felt safe and went back to going out at night and working. But after the recent events in Karawan (nightclub) and other places, people got scared, so our customers are not going out at night or staying out late anymore.”
8. Man entering the bar with his own alcohol bottle
9. Bartender serving man his own alcohol
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Alaa Saloum, Soul bar co-owner:
“The difficulties we’re facing is getting an alcohol license, almost nowhere (at the moment) in Syria has an alcohol license, maybe two or three places have licenses, the rest don’t. We work in the alcohol business and currently we can’t serve alcohol at all. Customers are now bringing their own alcohol and we serve them. We’re open for people to come and we serve them juice mixers and soft drinks and water.”
11. Various of men drinking at bar
12. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Rami Yousef, bar customer:
“We were very comfortable going out at night and going to bars, especially in touristic areas like this, in Bab Touma specifically. We were carefree, we would go out until three or four or five in the morning, we were happy, we were carefree, we went out with friends, men and women together, there was no difference. Right now this isn’t happening, you have to worry about everything.”
13. Various of women working at bar
14. Various of female DJ in DJ booth
15. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Nibal al-Qatrib, DJ at Soul bar:
“The work situation was better before, when the (attacks) happened recently there wasn’t as much work anymore, and it became hard to come by.”
16. Soul bar neon sign
17. Men sitting at bar
18. Glasses with alcohol on table
STORYLINE:
Juice bottles adorn the windows of bars on the old streets of Bab Sharqi in the Syrian capital. Instead of bottles of whisky and vodka, the bars are putting soft drinks and juice boxes on display
Bars in the Christian areas of Damascus have been on high alert after recent attacks that targeted establishments serving alcohol. In late April, surveillance footage outside a nightclub in Damascus went viral showing men and women fleeing the establishment with masked gunmen standing outside hitting them as they ran away. Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the gunmen were from government-aligned militias, who raided the restaurant and fired warning shots.
Days later on May 2nd, unknown gunmen opened fire at another Damascus nightclub in the morning killing a woman and wounding others. Local television network Syria TV said the perpetrators were five men in military garb, and their identities and motives were unknown.
At Soul Bar in old Damascus, co-owner Alaa Saloum said the attacks affected his business. He acknowledged that the attacks are singular or lone attacks, but said it caused people to be fearful.
“But after the recent events in Karawan (nightclub) and other places, people got scared, so our customers are not going out at night or staying out late anymore,” he said.
Video by Abd Al-Rahman Shaheen and Production by Malak Harb
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/eb4a2601b43e4a659fdc32f7337e7e1e
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in May 27, 2025, 6:04 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
