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