Many of Syria's 2.5 million Christians are supporting President Bashar Assad amidst ongoing protests in the country. They prefer a brutal dictator who guarantees the rights of religious minorities to the uncertain future that Assad's departure would bring. The president is exploiting their fears of Islamists for his own ends. The rebellion against him was just a few days old when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad summoned his country's Christian leaders to the presidential palace in northwestern Damascus. Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius came. He is 78 years old and critically ill, but still a powerful figure. Bishops and archbishops representing Catholics, Armenians, Aramaeans and Assyrians were also present. In total, there were a dozen religious leaders, representing around 2.5 million Syrian Christians. The message they received from their head of state was short and simple: Either support me, or your churches will burn. It seemed Assad, himself a member of the Alawis, a branch of Shia Islam, didn't want to assume that Syria's Christians would continue to remain aloof from politics. Sensing that not only his authority but perhaps his very survival was at stake, he resorted to the same means his father, Hafez Assad, once used to maintain power: pressure and violence. The Arab League has suspended Syria's membership, isolating the country internationally. Damascus missed last Friday's deadline for Assad to stop the bloodshed and allow a commission of observers into the country. The League had allowed a brief extension, but on Sunday imposed harsh economic sanctions on the country. On Wednesday, Turkey also introduced its own economic sanctions on Syria. Open Loyalty The regime has killed at least 3,500 people since March. There are reports of torture, executions of unarmed individuals and mass executions of army deserters. But none of this has dissuaded members of the opposition. Shaky Internet videos show thousands continuing to march through the streets of Homs, Hama, Daraa and Damascus, chanting: "Down with Bashar!" Christian neighborhoods and villages, meanwhile, have remained largely quiet, with no large demonstrations and little chanting or graffiti critical of the regime. Instead, there is silence. Or, worse still, expressions of open loyalty to the regime. "President Assad is a very cultured man," says Gregorios Elias Tab

Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein.