Families of Syria's disappeared furious with new drama about Assad regime prisons

A new Syrian drama that depicts the prisons of the former Assad regime has been angrily rejected by families of detainees who were killed or forcibly disappeared.

The families say that it exploits the tragedy of their loved ones, who have yet to receive justice for what was done to them.

The producers of the series, called "Caesar: No Place, No Time", say it is "based on real testimonies from inside Syrian detention centres, in an attempt to present a dramatic work documenting the violations witnessed during the period of the former Syrian regime’s rule".

However, the Syrian Caesar Families Association issued a strongly worded statement on Wednesday, saying that the wounds of the families of the Assad regime’s victims “are still bleeding” and cannot become material for commercial entertainment, saying that this “constitutes a direct insult to the dignity of the victims and their relatives.”

The statement, entitled “The Blood of Our Victims Is Not Material for Entertainment,” said that no dramatic production should be undertaken before “the completion of the path to truth and justice”, including the full disclosure of facts, identifying burial sites of victims, and returning their remains to their families with dignity.

It condemned “exploiting pain for profit or to enhance the reputation of parties involved.”

The regime of former dictator Bashar al-Assad, which was overthrown by rebels in December 2024, detained and forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of political opponents during the Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, after the brutal repression of anti-Assad protests.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) previously said that over 177,000 people had been forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime, most of whom are believed to have been killed.

There is no confirmed information about their fate though and mass graves are still being uncovered in Syria.

In 2014, a defector known as “Caesar” leaked thousands of photographs of the torture and killing of detainees at Sednaya Prison near Damascus. He later revealed his identity as Farid Al-Madhan, a former military photographer.

Another issue with the series which has angered families is the past affiliations of some of the actors involved.

Actors such as Salloum Haddad and Ghassan Massoud, who appear in the series, previously expressed support for the Assad regime when it was in power, while Hassan Ziyoud, who composed the theme song, has written a song before praising Assad’s army.

Ziyoud was accused of changing sides on the day that the Assad regime fell, on 8 December 2024.

Wafa Mustafa, a longtime Syrian opposition activist angrily hit out at the production, saying that they had subjected the suffering of the detainees and their families to “humiliation, mockery, and open profiteering.”

Families of Syrian detainees have long expressed frustration at the lack of information regarding the fate of their loved ones and the lack of an open transitional justice process. Some senior figures associated with the Assad regime’s abuses have been allowed to remain free after reaching deals with the new government.

“We learned no truth and no one saved us, and on top of that we must endure these opportunists, exaggerators, and traders,” Mustafa said. “Those who rehabilitated the criminals, those who allowed the destruction of evidence and the violation of prisons, those who painted over detention centres, those who went in to film action videos and dramatic scenes, those who made series about pain that hasn’t even begun to heal or been handled with the minimum standards of sensitivity and ethics.”

In response, the Syrian government denied that filming had taken place at any prison site.