The Syrian Ministry of Culture announced the cancellation of the concert of the artist Shadi Jameel, which was scheduled to be performed at the Opera House in Damascus next month, following a wave of criticism and demands to withdraw the license and hold accountable the parties that approved it.
The decision to cancel came through an official post published by the Director General of the Directorates of Culture and Cultural Centers, Anas Al-Daghim, in which he explained that the cancellation is related to an old recording that shows Jameel singing for Bashar al-Assad years ago.
The announcement of the concert over the past two days sparked a major controversy on social media, with activists deeming the concert "a disregard for the artist's pro-Assad positions", and circulating a video clip from a concert held in Venezuela in 2014, in which Jameel declared his clear support for the ousted president in conjunction with his re-election for a new term.
Between street pressure and the interaction of the platforms, the decision to cancel came to put an end to the controversy, but in turn, it opened up a broader debate about licensing standards, the responsibility of cultural institutions, and the limits of political memory in the Syrian art scene.
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