Assad

Assad al-Nassasra was missing for three weeks until the International Committee of the Red Cross received information he was in Israeli detention.

Though few are sorry to see the downfall of former President Bashar Assad, they fear the Islamist-led authorities now in charge may prove to be just as restrictive in what they allow on screen.

Celebrity actors and showrunners who strayed from the rah-rah government line, or who broached third-rail topics such as Assad’s security forces’ culpability in atrocities, found themselves attacked, blacklisted or even forced into exile.

Filming had been interrupted by the fall of Assad and unrest in Syria.

In December, a rebel coalition led by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham began its assault on Assad’s forces.