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How Asma Al-Assad Became Syria's Lady Macb
Evening Standard
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9 months ago
Asma al-Assad was once seen as a positive influence on the Syrian president with her focus on NGO and charity work, but as civil war broke out in Syria her role turned towards aiding and abetting her husband’s brutal crackdown on dissidents.
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00:00
Asma al-Assad was once seen as a positive influence on the Syrian president,
00:04
with her focus on NGO and charity work.
00:07
But as civil war broke out in Syria, her role turned towards aiding
00:11
and abetting her husband's brutal crackdown on dissidents.
00:14
So how did this London ex-banker with a professed passion for empowering young people
00:19
become a villainous figure who was investigated by the Met Police for war crimes?
00:24
In her early years as the First Lady,
00:26
Asma was focused on encouraging under-18s to be active citizens.
00:31
She set up youth centres across Syria which taught young people about civic responsibility
00:36
and established an NGO which equipped teens with business skills.
00:40
Before the civil war in Syria, the Assads were players on the international stage.
00:44
But in March 2011, pro-democracy rallies and protests against Bashar al-Assad's rule
00:50
spread across Syria.
00:52
The government responded with violent crackdowns, killing thousands of civilians.
00:57
Rebel groups formed and by 2012, the country was in full-blown civil war.
01:02
Throughout this period, Asma made no public statement.
01:05
She broke her silence with an email to The Times in 2012, which simply stated,
01:10
The President is the President of Syria, not a faction of Syrians,
01:14
and the First Lady supports him in that role.
01:17
Since then, she has backed her husband's military pursuits,
01:20
which have contributed to the deaths of over half a million, with 13 million Syrians displaced.
01:27
While the war raged on, Asma regularly visited hospitals and
01:31
supported the families of wounded and dead soldiers.
01:33
Yet in 2021, the Met Police launched an investigation into whether she was
01:38
complicit in war crimes and should have her citizenship revoked.
01:42
After Bashar al-Assad's government collapsed, the family sought refuge in Moscow
01:47
and were granted asylum by the Russian government.
01:49
She was once seen as a positive force in the Middle East,
01:53
but Asma al-Assad's reputation is now one of ruthlessness and avarice.
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