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SYRIA - MEDIA REFLECT REVOLT, WOMEN'S ROLES, CRISIS
After living in
In those happier times, families and friends got together for enormous meals after sunset, met in cafes for a hookah or took walks.
People also commonly gathered around a TV set to watch a special Syrian-made Ramadan soap opera that often dared to push the envelope on social conventions.
This year I'm not there. I'm in
More than 140 people, mostly demonstrators, were killed in
All told, some 2,000 people have been killed and 15,000 arrested since the revolt's start in mid-March, according to Syrian Observatory, a human rights group.
The regime in
In years past Syrian TV productions (musalsalat) attracted tens of millions
of spectators between North Africa and the
Drama Stirs Debate
Last year's drama "Ma Malakat Aymanukum" (What Your Right Hand Possesses), produced by Najdat Anzour, stirred heated discussion in the Arabic world about sex-role attitudes, Islamic fundamentalism and violence.
It told the story of four young women suffering under society's male domination. Layla, the main character, is caught in a fight between vice and virtue. She longs to raise her niqab (the black full-face veil) and live out the love she feels for one of her neighbors. But she is trapped by her family's stifling customs and opposing wishes. Her brother, a conservative sheik, plots her murder while having an extramarital affair himself.
Some viewers reacted to the drama in horror. They said it endangered the reputation of Islam and called for a viewer boycott. Others praised it for exposing religious hypocrisy.
Ramadan 2011, however, has pulled the country far beyond TV dramas.
Actors began playing real-life parts three months ago when some signed the so- called Milk Petition. Signed by more than 300 Syrian actors, writers and TV personalities, the Milk Petition called on the government to lift the siege imposed on the southwestern city Daraa at the end of April and to provide its inhabitants, especially children, with urgently needed food and medicine.
In response, 22 production companies and producers faithful to the regime, including Najdat Anzour, announced they would boycott those who signed the Milk Petition.
One famous signatory of the petition is the Syrian actress Yara Sabri, who openly backs the protesters' demands for more democracy, political freedom and participation in the highly corrupt police state. Sabri used to appear in several soap operas but this year she can only be seen in one, "Jalsat Nisa'yiah" (Women's Gatherings), a drama about love and betrayal. The show's central idea is that every successful man is upheld by a strong woman.
Leaving the Country
Sabri, her husband, the director Maher Sulaybi, and their children are said
to have left
May Skaff, another well-known TV and movie actress, was arrested on July 13
during a demonstration in the
Skaff and about 250 artists and intellectuals have joined forces to support protesters' demands to push the country in the direction of a more fair and modern state.
Razan Zeitouneh, an outspoken 34-year-old human rights advocate, went into
hiding in March after the government accused her of being a foreign agent.
Still, she continued to write weekly in the German news magazine Die Zeit and
is regularly quoted by other overseas newspapers. On May 12 her husband, Wael
Al-Hamada, was arrested by Syrian Security to silence Zeitouneh. Their efforts
proved unsuccessful, as Zeitouneh continues to denounce human rights violations
and writes unremittingly about the latest developments in
In the meantime, international broadcasting stations continue to deliver pictures of women tortured and raped in prison, men killed while asking for a life of dignity and children who died in the crossfire of the revolt.
With these scenes being transmitted directly into the country's living
rooms, no Ramadan production is necessary this year to bring drama to everyday