With her canary yellow jacket, piercings, and tattoos, Maribelle Haddad, 27, knows that she stands out in the landscape of the conservative city of Aleppo, in north-western Syria. Sitting on a large sofa in the Al-Manzel hookah café on Sunday, December 22, the young woman held out her phone and pressed the button on a voice message: "If you persist in doing what you did in Damascus [where a protest for women's rights took place on December 19], I'll cut your head off," said a certain Mohamed serenely.

For this young woman, who has turned her Facebook page into a boxing ring and responds to invective with indifference, few messages could have pushed her to abandon the protest in defense of women's rights launched with her friends and scheduled for December 21 in Aleppo. This time, however, Maribelle, from a Christian family at odds with her community, had to give in. "This man introduced himself as a former jihadist. We know that some members of these factions have already beheaded people," she said, nervously tugging at the sleeves of her woolen sweater. The protest was canceled.

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