The wife of ousted Syrian President Bashar al -Assad, was born in 1975 in London, and became the first lady of Syria between 2000 and 2024, and was promoted over the years, especially in the Western press, as the civilized face of Syria, but that image was unable to withstand its position Supporting her husband and the regime in the suppression of the Syrian revolution that broke out in 2011.
It had a major role in building a network of museums and cultural institutions that served the policies of the system, and also showed great interest in enhancing social and economic development, by establishing many non -governmental charitable institutions, which dominated international aid, directed them towards the regime’s supportive groups, and took advantage of charitable work in Hegemony over the country’s economy sector.
She suffered leukemia in 2024, and she was forced to move to Russia for treatment before the fall of Bashar al -Assad’s regime on December 8 of the same year, and press reports confirmed that it entered into a critical health situation.
Generator
Asma Fawaz Al -Akhras was born on August 11, 1975 in the British capital, London, to a Syrian family from the city of Homs, and her parents had settled in London at the beginning of the seventies Syrian in the British capital.
Asma grew up in the Acton neighborhood, west of London, near the high -end areas, and lived in a family known as a conservative Sunni Muslim family. Her father was visiting the mosque, and her mother was wearing the veil.
She carried the names of British citizenship, and she grew up in a Western genesis, as she studied in English schools, and she was not distinguished from other peers, and she became famous at school as “Emma”, and she was not known for her Arab or Islamic identity, and she did not show a link to her original homeland, Syria, or an interest in the Middle East and its issues .
Study and scientific training
She received her basic education in London, graduated from the Tiveford Secondary School of the England Church, then moved to the Queens College of the University of Cambridge at Marybon, London, and graduated from it.
After that, she joined the King’s Faculty of the University of London, and won a Bachelor’s degree with honors in French computer and literature in 1996, and later obtained an honorary doctorate in archeology from the University of La Lapinza in Rome, in appreciation of its role in preserving the Syrian cultural heritage.
Asmaa Al -Assad, along with the Arabic language, is good at three other languages: English, French and Spanish.
The professional path
In the wake of her graduation from the university, she went out on a six -month trip, spent between the Far East and Europe, after which a successful career began in the field of investment banking services, and worked in prominent international banks.
In 1997, she obtained a job analyst for the hedge funds at Deutsche Bank in New York City, and in the following year, she moved to work in the investment department at the GB Morgan Bank, and worked an organized analyst until 2000, then submitted her resignation, ending her short career.
Marriage to Bashar al -Assad
Her first meeting with Bashar al -Assad in 1992, when he traveled to London for the purpose of studying ophthalmology, was related to her father, so he knew him, and after the death of his brother Basil in 1994, Bashar closed a return to Damascus, leaving medicine forever to start his political path in preparation for his assumption of power .
Bashar assumed the presidency in 2000 to succeed his father, and then names resigned from her work, and she had planned to complete a master’s degree at Harvard University, as she managed to obtain a seat for her at the College of Business Administration, but she preferred to leave everything behind, and move to Syria, where she was not soon She married Bashar on December 18, 2000, a few months after he took power.
At the beginning of her marriage, she was not welcome by the family of her husband, especially his mother Anisa Makhlouf, who did not agree to their marriage, and some attribute this to the affiliation of the names of the Sunni community, while the Assad family is from the Alawite sect, as well as its inability to integrate into society East, especially since its Arabic language, at that time, was not good enough, and the problem also doubled its lack of knowledge of the Alawite dialect circulating in the environment around it.
In the first years of her marriage, she gave birth to three children: the eldest son, Hafez, born in 2001, the middle daughter Zain, born in 2003, and the youngest Karim, who was born in 2004.
The first lady of Syria
The names of the first lady of Syria became, and she worked to change the stereotype of the family, by showing her with a more modest and modern appearance, as the couple moved from the palace that was equal to one billion dollars, and lived in a three -storey house, in a Damascus neighborhood.
Meanwhile, it was involved in public life, recorded a strong presence in official occasions, and launched initiatives to enhance social and economic development in the country, and had a pivotal role in building a network of museums and cultural institutions, which were serving the regime’s policies.
It has started a project that it described as representing the “cultural renaissance”, aiming to build artistic exhibitions and cultural parks and the establishment of a transportation network linking Damascus with historical cities in the northeast of the country, and it used the implementation of that project with former officials of the United Nations and members of foreign companies and experts in European and Syrian museums Affected by Western culture.
Its efforts succeeded in improving the image of the regime, so she received foreign parliamentary delegations and stars from Hollywood, and the French sympathized with her after her visit to Paris, and caught her cultural and social activities the looks of the Americans, so the country had a visit to US officials, especially after Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008.
Asmaa Al -Assad received several honors, including: The First Arab Lady Award, presented by the Arab Women Foundation, in cooperation with the League of Arab States in 2008, and the Medal of the Presidency of the Golden Republic of the Italian in the same year, in recognition of her efforts in the humanitarian field.
The local and international media worked to highlight it, until it became known as the “modern face of the Syrian regime”, and the Western press presented it as an advanced and elegant woman, as well as being smart and confident of herself, and is making great efforts in promoting Syrian openness to the world through art and charitable work.
During her official visit to the United Kingdom in 2002, the British press called her “Diana Al Sharq”, while the French magazine “Barry Match” described it as “a source of light in a country full of dark areas.”
The American magazine Fogh promoted her in 2011, when she called her “a rose in the desert”, but the entire article was later deleted from the site, after the Syrian regime was suppressed to the peaceful popular protest in Syria, which started shortly after the publication of the article.
Charitable work and economic influence
Asmaa al -Assad has entered the first years of her marriage in the field of charitable work, and took advantage of her to expand her influence in the country, especially the economist, and her first initiative was the Syrian Fund for Development, which he established in 2001.
In 2007, its activities expanded, when the “Syrian Secretariat for Development”, which is a huge non -governmental charitable project, has established the First Lady of its Board of Trustees from its foundation until the Assad regime fell in 2024.
The control of the Secretariat extended until it included 15 societal centers in many Syrian governorates, and a group of non -governmental charitable projects and institutions came under it, such as: the Syrian Fund for Rural Development (Firdous) and the “Path” project supporting childhood, and the Mawred Foundation, which took care of providing loans to women, in A framework for activating the role of women in the economy.
The Secretariat was the only non -governmental organization that operates under the Assad regime, and it was not allowed for any other non -governmental organization, which made it monopolize charitable works.
According to the French expert in Middle East, Jean -Pierre Felio, the Secretariat was a mandatory mediator for the United Nations and the European Union, and forced to cooperate with it to maintain their charitable activity in Syria.
The charity was receiving most of the funds received from abroad to Syria, as international donors were provided as a major partner in the reconstruction of a country destroyed by the conflict, thus dominating international aid.
In addition to that internationally funded, other local projects were under the secretariat, such as the National Corporation for Small Projects, which achieved profits no less than what the medium financing banks achieve.
The Secretariat was criticized for its close association with the Bashar regime and its complicity in the regime’s violations of human rights, and was accused of preventing aid from the areas affected by the war, turning it towards the pro -regime groups, and using aid to support the pro -deposited militias.
Over the years of her influence, Asma Assad took advantage of charitable works to build a wide patronage network, and according to a report published by the “Syria Report” website, she and her husband took advantage of the conditions of the conflict, which led to the fall of the traditional businessmen and the rise of the war merchants class, to become the main economic players in The country, which allowed them to extend their influence over several sectors, including communications, banking services, real estate and ports.
International sanctions
With the continuation of the popular revolution, which erupted in March 2011, Asma al -Assad announced its support for her husband, and led a pivotal role in implementing the regime’s policies, including manipulating the distribution of aid in a way that enhances the work of repression and war crimes in the country, which led to the collapse of the “bright image” That I tried to draw over the years before the revolution.
Accordingly, the international hospitality that it received, and some of the secretariat projects stopped as a result of the sanctions imposed on the Syrian regime, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been supported by the support directed to the institutions of the NGOs, as the Syrian Secretariat for Development was considered the representative of it to preserve the cultural heritage. Laadi in the Middle East.
In March 2012, the European Union imposed sanctions on Asma, in the context of the sanctions imposed on the Assad regime, and this was represented in banning its travel and freezing its assets, and despite Britain’s exit from the union, and the names of British citizenship, London committed to the penalties imposed, did not receive a wife Assad welcomes the country for being a supporter of the regime, and many demanded in the United Kingdom to withdraw its British nationality.
In the year 2020, the United States imposed sanctions, as it is one of the largest beneficiaries of the war in Syria, and accused it of unlawful gain at the expense of the Syrian people, and the use of charitable organizations to enhance its economic and political influence.
The company “Jerinaca 37”, a law firm specialized in international justice, focused on conflicts, raised a case against Asma al -Assad in 2021, and after that, London Police opened an investigation into accusations of inciting terrorist acts and participating in war crimes in Syria.
Fashion and lavish life
She was famous for her blasphemy, and her love for fashion and luxury fashion, which brings from the finest foreign fashion houses, which bears the signature of the top international designers, and thanks to that, the French magazine “Apple” specialized in the world of fashion gave her the title of “First Lady of Elegance” in 2008.
Despite the outbreak of a bloody conflict in which thousands died, the owner of the country’s economy, and harsh living conditions suffered from most of the people, the first lady continued to shop from stores and luxury stores, and she was indulged in a luxurious living, and decorated her home with artifacts and artistic paintings, which cost each one Tens of millions of dollars, and seemed not interested in the miserable situation faced by the Syrians.
Leaked email messages from the accounts of Assad and her husband, published by the British Guardian newspaper in 2012, revealed that they spent tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, jewelry, furniture and expensive paintings.
The wife of the British and German ambassadors to the United Nations also published a video directed at the names of Assad, which shows the paradox between the luxury life in her family and what the war victims suffer in Syria.
A struggle with illness
Names of breast cancer were injured in 2018, and underwent treatment in a military hospital in Damascus, and after a year of treatment she recovered because the disease was in its early stages.
In May 2024, the Syrian presidency revealed that she had leukemia (leukemia), and a special treatment protocol began to require complete health, and it was announced that it stopped participating in events and public events.
Weeks before the fall of Bashar al -Assad’s regime on December 8, 2024, Asma moved to Moscow for advanced medical care, and press reports reported that she is living in a critical health condition, and that she is under complete health insulation.
Source : Al Jazeera + Agencies + British press + Syrian press
(Tagstotranslate) Encyclopedia (T) Syria (T) Arabic