Egyptian TV comedian: Syrians using make-up to ‘fake’ Aleppo carnage

Egyptian actor and comedian Ahmad Adam, who hosts a stand-up comedy TV show, came under fire this week after ridiculing Syrian victims of the recent violence in the city of Aleppo.

Adam claimed that news reports on the regime’s bombardment were fake, saying that victims had been made to look like they had been pulled out of the rubble by applying white powder make-up.

"Use your mind and think. Aleppo was the only city in support of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad and it had refused to protest against him, so why would he then bomb it?! It is illogical," Adam said. This claim is untrue as there are rebel-held areas in the city.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest pre-war city, has witnessed a vicious flare-up in fighting in recent weeks, shattering a nationwide cessation of hostilities agreement and causing peace talks to collapse. The violence has been described as “monstrous” by the United Nations.

Adam said recent developments in Aleppo were being fabricated by major Arab and Western news outlets.

"If you follow up on the coverage, you'd die of laughter. They take phone calls from Aleppo?! Aleppo, which is being bombed and where people have no power, water or phone lines," he joked, asking how anyone can possibly make a phone call from Aleppo under these conditions.

Adam also ridiculed footage of a man being pulled from under the rubble there and claimed the man was wearing make-up.

"I saw a man (being pulled from under the rubble) and they had put powder on his hair and on his face, but his neck was very clean. This man was supposedly under the rubble! He was bleeding but not hurt! His face was heavily powdered. What was he hit with? A hairdresser attacked him with a rocket filled with powder?" Adam added.

Adam came under fire as a result of his remarks with angry social media users criticizing him and labeling him inhumane.

"(You) resemble anything but a human being!" one user wrote on Twitter.

"Ahmad Adam, are you done with all genres of comedy and have nothing left to do but laugh at the bloodshed in Aleppo?" another wrote.

Following the outrage, Arab media reported that lawyer Youssef al-Mataani filed a complaint against Adam to the attorney general.

Mataani requested that Adam and the channel, Al-Hayat on which the program “Bani Adam Show” airs, be investigated for ridiculing events in Aleppo and claiming that the events had been fabricated.