Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s murderer-in-chief, has fled to Moscow. The people are celebrating, tearing down posters of Assad and statues of his equally vicious father, who founded the regime.

Art World Syrian Artists Envision a Future After Assad: ‘I’m Drunk With Ideas’ While it’s uncertain what comes next, they believe nothing could be worse than the last five decades.

Assad’s exit stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip.

It was after Bashar al-Assad violently clamped down on protesters in 2011 that Syria was plunged into a 13-year civil war, in the course of which 500,000 people are thought to have been killed.

Now, with Bashar Al-Assad gone, Hafez joins the show to share his hopes for this moment, and to talk about how his art has helped him to adjust. Aired 12/12/2024 Problems playing video?

Comics had already been trying to foster stand-up in Syria before Bashar al-Assad’s fall. Now, they are telling jokes in a liberated country, while warily eyeing the new government.

The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government has brought to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto power as his country fragmented amid a brutal civil war that ...

FILE - President-elect Lt. Gen. Bashar al Assad, right, attends military training games with Ali Aslan, Chief of Staff of the Syrian army, July 12, 2000, in Syria. (SANA via AP, File) ...