Syrian filmmaker making prison torture movie survives 'assassination attempt'
Muhammad Bayazid stabbed in Istanbul on Tuesday night, as he sought funds for project detailing Assad regime abuses at notorious Tadmur prison
A Syrian filmmaker working on a movie detailing the Assad regime’s abuses in the notorious Tadmur prison in Palmyra has regained consciousness after a suspected assassination attempt in Istanbul, the second such attack on opposition activists in Turkey in less than a month.
Muhammad Bayazid, who studied filmmaking in the US and was in Turkey promoting his upcoming film The Tunnel, was stabbed on Tuesday night while heading to a meeting with a supposed businessman who had promised to help raise funds for his project.
He was on Wednesday evening described as being in a stable condition after hours in intensive care.
“Last night he was very unstable, he was stabbed in the chest close to the blood vessels that provide blood to the heart, so there was massive bleeding,” Samah Safi Bayazid, Muhammad’s wife, told the Guardian by phone. “Thank God he is awake and conscious.”
“It was a miracle that he survived,” she added, saying she believed the attack was an assassination attempt.
Bayazid was working on a film dramatising the story of a Syrian-American man who spent 20 years in the prison in Palmyra, where thousands of Islamists and opponents of the Assad regime languished or were summarily executed. The prison was demolished by Islamic State when it conquered the city in 2015.
from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2hChxNt
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