ISIS is waging a campaign against Mother's Day cakes in a town in Syria

BEIRUT – ISIS went on a campaign against Mother’s Day cakes in eastern Syria’s Al-Mayadeen, where the group has faced violent resistance for its arbitrary policies. 

“ISIS members roamed Al-Mayadeen’s markets on March 21, confiscating molds bearing Mother’s Day phrases,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Monday.

The report added that ISIS was angered by the cakes because it considers the celebration of Mother’s Day, which was observed Saturday in Syria, a “heresy.” 

ISIS has not issued official condemnations of Mother’s Day, however the militant group’s members and supporters took to Twitter to bash the celebration.

The confiscation of cake molds was the latest repressive move by ISIS in Al-Mayadeen, which the group seized in early July 2014 as part of its broader offensive against rebel groups in the Deir Ezzor province. 

As the militant group consolidated control over the area, it executed over 700 members of the local Shaitat tribe in a three-day melee of executions outside Al-Mayadeen, one of the areas the tribe had a presence.

ISIS has since been targeted by a number of mysterious hit-and-run shootings in Al-Mayadeen, despite heightened security measures in the town. 

Goods And Taxes

As part of its top-down command economy policies, ISIS recently set up a monitoring center in Al-Mayadeen to audit all goods entering the area, after it imposed a comprehensive tax on economic activity in the eastern Syrian town. 

The opposition All4Syria news outlet reported Friday that “official documents [that either] give [the group’s] permission for the entry of goods or impose fines are approved and signed” at the center.

“Activists have said that the ISIS monitoring center contains large quantities of […] commercial goods that have been confiscated from locals, such as vegetables and other [tradable items].” 

Earlier in the year, the militant group imposed a zakat Islamic charity tax, with the Observatory reporting that in late January money was collected from “traders, the owners of commercial enterprises and goldsmiths in the town’s markets.”

The collection was made under the threat of violence as ISIS warned it would exact “zakat funds” by force if businesses did not pay.

The “value of zakat” was specified at 2.5% of the total value of the money and assets each trader, professional or goldsmith possesses.

The Observatory reported over the weekend that “ISIS had distributed ‘zakat’ in the city of Al-Mayadeen to displaced persons and the poor.”

“The group distributed material sums ranging from 75,000 to 100,000 Syrian pounds to displaced and poor families that have no breadwinner,” the monitoring NGO said.

“Low-income families that have difficulty making a living were given material sums ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 Syrian pounds.”