Bashar al-Assad

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Bashar al-Assad in Russia, May 2018

Bashar Hafiz al-Assad ( Arabic بشار حافظ الأسد, DMG Baššār Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad ; * September 11, 1965 in Damascus ) is a Syrian politician and President of Syria . The form of rule his family over Syria characterize political scientists as a dictatorship .

In 2000, Assad succeeded his father Hafiz al-Assad as General Secretary of the Ba'ath Party and President of Syria . In his first presidential election in 2000 and in his re-election in 2007 , he received over 97% of the vote. After he was seen by many states as a potential reformer when he came to power, the United States and the European Union called for his resignation in 2011 for militarily cracking down on Arab Spring protesters in Syria. He thus carried through oppressioncontributed to the civil war in Syria that followed the Arab Spring . The majority of the Arab League also called on him to resign in 2012. Due to the internationally criticized presidential elections in Syria in 2014 and 2021 , his rule has been extended to this day.

In December 2013, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that Assad had authorized war crimes . In 2016, Bashar al-Assad rejected allegations of war crimes and criticized the military interventions of some states in the Syrian civil war , which he said were aimed at bringing about a change of government in Syria. Systematic kidnappings , murders and torture by the Syrian armed forces and the Syrian secret service are documented under Assad's rule . The German Federal Public Prosecutor General and the French Public Prosecutor's Office are investigating, inter alia. according to the principle of universal law .

Career (1965–1999)

childhood

Bashar al-Assad comes from the Alawi Assad family, which is interwoven with the state, and was born in 1965 as the son of the officer Hafiz al-Assad (1930-2000) and his wife Anisa Machluf (1934-2016). In 1966, his father took part in a coup and was promoted to defense minister, in 1971 he became president and ruled Syria until his death in 2000. Comparatively little is known about Bashar al-Assad's childhood and youth. Unlike his father and his older brother, Basil al-Assad, who was chosen as his successor , Bashar was never part of the personality cult surrounding the president before Basil's death in 1994 .

In contrast to their older siblings Basil and Buschra , Bashar and his younger brother Maher did not get to know their father at a time when he was not yet regarded as a national myth. The relationship between Bashar and his father was visibly damaged and is described as "distant". In public and private statements, Bashar rarely calls him “my father”, but mostly speaks of “President Hafiz al-Assad”.

Youth, training and work

Assad attended school in the early days of the Ba'ath Party regime . The school books of this era paint a rather one-sided history of good and noble Arabs on the one hand and evil and conspiratorial colonial powers and Jews on the other.

Assad received no military training until he began studying medicine in Damascus in the 1980s , a calling that his father would originally have been happy to follow. After a while in London , he continued his studies and trained as an ophthalmologist at the Western Eye Hospital . During this time he met his future wife, the financial analyst Asma (Emma) Fauaz al-Akhras , a British-born and raised Syrian from a family of wealthy Sunnis , with whom he stayed in contact even after his studies.

In addition to his interest in medicine, Assad is also considered technically gifted and developed a particular fondness for computers. With the support of Basil, he founded the Syrian Computer Society (SCS) in 1989 and became its president. The SCS has set itself the task of spreading computers and the Internet and has been an important cadre forge since Assad came to power . The overall manner in which he was trained suggests that Assad was not originally intended for a role within the regime.

Development of the successor to his father (from 1994)

On January 21, 1994, Basil died in a car accident. Bashar al-Assad, who until then was largely unknown to the Syrian public, returned to Syria and was established as his father's successor during the 1990s. In 1994 he did a crash course to become a tank commander. His military training is more of a symbolic nature, so that Assad relies to a greater extent on the opinions of his advisors on military matters, unlike his father, who himself had practical experience as an officer.

Over the following years, Assad moved up the military hierarchy almost every year. He became the commander of the presidential guard and was active in diplomacy. At the same time he was considered an educated and gentle “reformer”, among other things by leading an anti-corruption campaign and taking cautious steps so that constructive criticism within the administrative apparatus was possible. In 1999, Assad took part in bringing numerous supporters of his uncle Rifa'at al-Assad to prison.

President (since 2000)

Fish stall with a photo of Hafiz al-Assad in the middle and three of Bashar al-Assad to the side. Tartus , 2001.

Shortly after the death of his father on June 10, 2000, the constitution was amended and the minimum age for the president was lowered from 40 to 34 years to enable Assad to succeed him. On June 18, he was unanimously elected general secretary and presidential candidate by the Ba'ath Party. At the same time he was promoted to general and appointed commander in chief of the Syrian armed forces . On July 10, 2000, Assad was confirmed as president in a referendum with 97.3% of the votes and was sworn in on July 17.

In December 2000 he married his long-time girlfriend Asma Fauaz al-Akhras (born August 11, 1975). The couple had three children, Hafiz (born December 3, 2001), Zein (born November 5, 2003) and Karim (born December 16, 2004). Despite recurring reports of marital problems, Asma appears to have had a significant impact on her husband overall, but is not officially involved in the political decision-making process.

Damascus spring

With Assad's takeover, hopes of a political and economic opening of the country were linked both in Syria itself and in other western countries. At first these seemed to be confirmed. For Syrian intellectuals, a period of unprecedented freedom of speech began in early 2001, known as the Damascus Spring . The demands for democratic reforms spread unexpectedly quickly and grew rapidly in vehemence, so that the Damascus Spring was followed by the "Damascus Winter" in January 2002, during which the new freedoms were largely restricted again. A large number of intellectual and parliamentary backbenchers were imprisoned after show trials , which in Syria represented a relative moderation, since critics in the time of Hafiz al-Assad had mostly disappeared without a trace . Both Syrians and Western observers initially believed that Assad was fundamentally willing to reform, but had been prevented from radical liberalization by an "old guard" made up of his father's former comrades in the military. In the meantime, however, researchers and Syrian opposition figures have largely agreed that the decision to withdraw the reform process essentially went back to Assad himself, who was concerned about the stability of the regime. This is also made clear by the fact that Assad had efficiently and sustainably removed the members of the “old guard” from their positions over the course of the first five years of his rule.

Almost simultaneously with the withdrawal of civil liberties, Assad began to rejuvenate the Ba'ath Party and to give it a new meaning. Instead of allowing a real civil society debate, suggestions and criticism should now be developed and formulated within the party. The Syrian Computer Society was and still is an important reservoir for young party cadres .

After the end of the Lebanon War in 2006 , Assad spoke in a speech on August 15, 2006 of a “victorious resistance” by Hezbollah in Lebanon and described Israel as an “enemy” with whom there was no peace. The then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier , who wanted to mediate in the Middle East conflict, canceled a visit to Syria at short notice. On May 27, 2007, Assad was confirmed in a referendum without opposing candidates, according to official information, with more than 97 percent of the votes cast, and was thus elected for a further seven-year term.

Syrian civil war

On January 31, 2011, Assad commented on the protests in Egypt in one of his rare interviews with Western media in the Wall Street Journal and called for a rethink among the Arab rulers towards more liberality. He reaffirmed the theses put forward earlier about Syria's backwardness in terms of civil society discourse and defended the reluctance of his government towards full democratic rights for his people. At the same time, he stated that the Arab Spring is unlikely to spread to Syria because of the different conditions there.

After Assad initially appeared to be right, the protests spread to Syria in mid-March 2011 and the security forces responded with increasing violence. In May 2011, the EU Commission and the Arab League imposed economic sanctions on Assad, his wife Asma al-Assad and other members of the Assad family for violent actions against civilians. In a statement on August 3, 2011, the UN Security Council condemned human rights violations and the use of force against civilians. In December 2011, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights , Navi Pillay , saw Syria on the brink of civil war. According to the UN, over 100,000 people died in the fighting by January 2014, including more than 500 children by spring 2012, according to human rights organizations. In addition, according to Pillay, a "huge number" of people are tortured and raped in camps. She therefore recommended going to the International Criminal Court. The United Nations gave up death counting in January 2014. In December 2013, Pillay said the UN Commission of Inquiry into Syria had found evidence that Assad authorized war crimes. In June 2014, the former chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and its Syria Accountability Project handed over to the International Criminal Court a list of suspects alleged to have violated the Rome Statute , including Bashar al-Assad.

In July 2011, the unrelated Riyad al-Asaad and other former officers of the Syrian Army announced the establishment of the Free Syrian Army , which was mainly composed of deserted soldiers. They led to numerous attacks on state security forces, and the human rights organization Human Rights Watch also reported kidnappings , torture and killings .

In November 2015, Amnesty International published a report claiming that Assad's government was systematically removing opponents. The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented the names of a total of 65,116 people, mostly civilians, who "disappeared" between March 2011 and August 2015 and whose whereabouts are still partly unknown. In March 2015, Human Rights Watch received a total of 53,275 photos from a refugee forensic photographer, code-named Caesar , who had been commissioned by the Syrian military police to take photos of people who had died in government custody, as well as of numerous dead members of the Syrian armed forces. A total of 28,707 photographs could be assigned to a total of 6,786 people who were arrested by the Syrian security authorities and who died or were murdered while in custody (e.g. in Saidnaya prison ). In France, investigations began in 2015 by the public prosecutor in Paris. In October 2019, the German Attorney General, applying the principle of universal law, brought charges against two alleged former employees of the Syrian secret service, accused of crimes against humanity , 58 murders, rape and sexual assault or aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. The trial before the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz began in April 2020; Photographs by the photographer Caesar are also said to serve as evidence. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) According to the number of detention by the disappeared to about 82,000, as well as the confirmed dead from torture to 14,000. Rose in 2018 In their 2014 annual report, Physicians for Human Rights said that doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, as well as medical facilities, were the preferred targets of the Syrian government forces. After the Chan Shaykhun poison gas attack in April 2017, the UN Chemical Weapons Prohibition Organization came to the conclusion that Assad’s government was responsible.

One and a half months after the parliamentary elections , which were postponed several times , Assad appointed a new government in June 2012. To this he appointed almost exclusively loyal party comrades and old followers. On August 9, 2012, Assad appointed the previous health minister, Wael al-Halki, as head of government. According to official figures, Assad won the presidential election in Syria in June 2014 with 88.7 percent of the vote . The UN , EU and USA criticized the election during the ongoing civil war and described it as a “farce”. Some states, including Germany and France, forbade voting in the Syrian embassy in the respective country. Assad's allies said the elections were "free and fair" and that they were democratic.

After observers initially considered the defeat of the Syrian government under Assad to be inevitable, the system stabilized as the war progressed and his troops succeeded in December 2016 with the rebel stronghold , supported by a large number of Iranian militia troops , the Russian air force and commando units East Aleppo to conquer the most important rebel base.

In an essay for Politico in December 2016, the analyst Barak Barfi concluded that Assad had waged a merciless fight against the insurgents that claimed up to 430,000 deaths, drove half the Syrian population out and devastated large parts of the larger cities however, on the other hand, it had managed to retain the support of a significant part of its citizens by allowing them to maintain a little bit of normalcy. In addition to working authorities or the transfer of salaries to state employees in rebel areas, he also counted on this façade, for example, that Assad never had the mobile network switched off in the country, although it was also used by his opponents.

In the presidential election in May 2021 , Assad was re-elected President of Syria with 95.1 percent, according to official figures.

Religious affiliation

Al-Assad belongs to the religious minority of the Alawites .

Reception for right-wing extremists

Assad has enjoyed great popularity among right-wing extremists since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011 at the latest. One of his supporters is the ex-NPD boss Udo Voigt , who has traveled to Damascus several times with a delegation. The right wing of the AfD parliamentary group sees Assad as a partner in the repatriation of Syrian refugees. MPs like Hans-Thomas Tillschneider openly call for solidarity with Assad. Last but not least, the AfD parliamentary group reaffirmed its support for Assad with a visit to Syria in March 2018. Assad is also valued in the American alt-right movement. Alt-right activist Richard Spencer explains this by saying that Assad is the "scapegoat in the mainstream media and the clear target of the Deep State, the military-industrial complex and the foreign policy establishment." Assad also receives support from the American neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke .

SS-Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner received asylum among the Assad family until his death in 2010.

honors and awards

literature

  • Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: Comparative Strategy. Vol. 25, 2006, pp. 353-445, doi: 10.1080 / 01495930601105412 ( PDF ).
  • David W. Lesch: The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria. Yale University Press, New Haven 2005, ISBN 978-0-300-10991-7 .
  • Flynt Leverett: Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire. Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC 2005, ISBN 978-0-8157-5204-2 .
  • Volker Perthes : Syria under Bashar al-Asad: modernization and the limits of change. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-856750-2 .
  • Eyal Zisser: Bashar al-Asad and his Regime - Between Continuity and Change. In: Orient. Vol. 45, H. 2, June 2004, pp. 239-256 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Bashar al-Assad  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Raymond Hinnebusch: Syria: from 'authoritarian upgrading' to revolution? In: International Affairs . tape 88 , no. 1 , January 1, 2012, ISSN  0020-5850 , p. 95–113 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1468-2346.2012.01059.x ( oup.com [accessed April 21, 2020]).
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  3. ↑ Weeks, Jessica: Dictators at War and Peace. C. p. 18. Ed .: Cornell University Press. S. 18 .
  4. ↑ Susanne Michalik: Measuring Authoritarian Regimes with Multiparty Elections . In: Multiparty Elections in Authoritarian regimes: Explaining Their Introduction and Effects (=  Studies on New Political Economy ). Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-09511-6 , pp. 33-45 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-09511-6_3 .
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  6. ^ Esther King: Assad denies responsibility for Syrian war. November 2, 2016, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  7. ↑ 'Bombing hospitals is a war crime,' Syria's Assad says. Accessed April 21, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 367 (English, PDF ).
  9. ↑ Jim Muir: Bashar al-Assad's tightening grip on Syria 10 years on. In: BBC News . July 17, 2010, accessed April 2, 2011 .
  10. ^ Jihad Yazigi: The Syrian Computer Society at the heart of Syria's IT sector. In: The Syria Report. April 2002, accessed April 2, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 387 (English, PDF ).
  12. ↑ a b Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 369 (English, PDF ).
  13. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 370 (English, PDF ).
  14. ^ Ian Black: Democracy Damascus style: Assad the only choice in referendum . In: The Guardian . May 28, 2007 ( theguardian.com [accessed April 21, 2020]).
  15. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 380 (English, PDF ).
  16. ↑ Lisa Erdmann: Baschar al-Assad: The dictator who would have preferred to become an ophthalmologist . In: Spiegel Online . April 17, 2003 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 20, 2019]).
  17. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 372f (English, PDF ).
  18. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 374 (English, PDF ).
  19. ↑ Shmuel Bar : Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview. In: herzliyaconference.org , 25/2006, p. 384 (English, PDF )
  20. ^ Scandal in the Middle East. In: n-tv . August 6, 2006, accessed April 2, 2011 .
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  23. ↑ Original decision of May 9, 2011: Decision 2011/273 / CFSP , Regulation (EU) No. 442/2011 - extension to include Bashar al-Assad and other relatives on May 23, 2011: Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 504/2011 , Notice to the persons to whom restrictive measures apply under Council Decision 2011/273 / CFSP and Council Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 on restrictive measures against Syria
  24. ^ Security Council, In Statement, condemns Syrian Authorities for "widespread violations of Human Rights, use of force against Civilians". UN Security Council, August 3, 2011, accessed December 13, 2011 .
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  27. ↑ Syrian civilians get the weight of the "collective punishment". UNRIC . Retrieved September 20, 2016.
  28. ↑ UN speaks of more than 5000 fatalities in Syria ( Memento from January 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  29. ↑ UN implicates Assad in war crimes. In: BBC News . December 2, 2013, accessed April 21, 2020 .
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  31. ↑ Free Syrian Army Founded by Seven Officers to Fight the Syrian Army Syria Comment on July 29, 2011.
  32. ↑ Rights group cites Syrian opposition for 'serious human rights abuses In: CNN.com. March 21, 2012. Retrieved May 30, 2012.
  33. ^ A b Amnesty International: Between Prison and the Grave. Enforced Disappereances in Syria "[s] ince 2011 the Syrian government has carried out an orchestrated campaign of enforced disappearances.". Report, November 2015, p. 7.
  34. ↑ Jörg Diehl, Martin Knobbe, Fidelius Schmid: Photos from Assad's torture cellar. In: Spiegel Online . September 23, 2017, accessed April 23, 2020 .
  35. ^ Human Rights Watch: If the Dead Could Speak. Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria's Detention Facilities. Report, December 2015, p. 2.
  36. ↑ France opens probe into Assad regime for crimes against humanity. Retrieved May 14, 2020 (American English).
  37. ↑ Federal prosecutor files charges against former Syrian secret service agents. In: Zeit Online . October 29, 2019, accessed April 23, 2020 .
  38. ↑ Claudia Kornmeier, Frank Bräutigam: Syrian ex-secret service agents in court. In: tagesschau.de . April 23, 2020, accessed April 23, 2020 .
  39. ↑ http://sn4hr.org/wp-content/pdf/english/By_Acknowledging_the_Death_of_836_Forcibly_Disappeared_Syrians_at_its_hands_the_Syrian_Regime_Convicts_itself_en.pdf
  40. ↑ How 'document hunters' spirited thousands of government files out of Syria. Accessed July 1, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Physicians for Human Rights: 2014 Annual Report , pp. 2f.
  42. ↑ Steve Almasy, Richard Roth: UN: Syria responsible for sarin attack that killed scores. In: CNN . October 27, 2017, accessed April 21, 2020 .
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  44. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120812012819/http://de.rian.ru/politics/20120809/264160067.html
  45. ↑ a b Bashar al-Assad wins presidential election in Syria In: N24 , June 4, 2014.
  46. ↑ Syrian presidential election started abroad. ( Memento from August 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung , May 28, 2014.
  47. ↑ Bashar al-Assad wins re-election in Syria as uprising against him rages on. In: The Guardian . June 4, 2014, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  48. ↑ Kerry calls Syrian presidential vote 'meaningless'. In: Al Jazeera America . June 4, 2014, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  49. ^ Anahita Mukherji: Foreign delegation in Syria slams West, endorses elections. In: The Times of India. June 5, 2014, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  50. ↑ Barak Barfi: "In Aleppo, I Saw Why Assad Is Winning" of December 2, 2016
  51. ↑ Syria: Bashar al-Assad can be re-elected with 95.1 percent. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved May 27, 2021 .
  52. ↑ Diana Hodali: Syria: Bashar al-Assad remains for an indefinite period In: dw.com , May 25, 2021, accessed on May 25, 2021.
  53. ↑ Frank Jansen: In loyalty firmly to dictator Assad. In: Tagesspiegel. June 23, 2016, accessed April 3, 2021 .
  54. ^ Sascha Ruppert: Assad and the AfD - An authoritarian alliance of expediency. In: disorient. July 4, 2019, accessed April 3, 2021 .
  55. ↑ Rose Troup Buchanan: The Alt-Right Is In Love With A Brutal, Arab Dictator. In: buzzfeednews. September 22, 2021, accessed April 3, 2021 .
  56. ↑ Willa Frej: David Duke Heaps Praise On Syrian Dictator In Bizarre Series Of Tweets. In: huffpost. March 13, 2017, accessed April 3, 2021 .
  57. ^ Macron, Assad et l'honneur de la France | Un si Proche Orient . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  58. ^ Damas rend la légion d'honneur d'Assad à la France, "esclave" de Washington - Liberation . Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  59. ↑ Про нагородження орденом князя Ярослава Мудрого | від April 20, 2002 № 362/2002 . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  60. ↑ Президент Сирии Башар Асад стал почетным доктором МГИМО - РИА Новости . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  61. ↑ صحيفة تشرين • وسام زايد للرئيس الأسد . Archived from the original on April 15, 2018. Retrieved on April 15, 2018.
  62. ↑ Suomen arvostenuimman kunniamerkin saaneet ulkomaalaiset hämärän peitossa - suurristi ketjuineen annettu natseille, hirmuhallitsijoille ja Syyrian al-Assadille . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  63. ↑ King Abdullah, President Al-Assad hold talks . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  64. ↑ Gobierno Nacional condecoró al Presidente sirio con Orden del Libertador - Correo del Orinoco . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  65. ^ Diário Oficial da União . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  66. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140429080726/http://www.marada-news.org/?q=node%2F3338
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  68. ↑ Comunicato . Retrieved April 15, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Assad, Bashar al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Assad, Bashar Hafiz al- (full name); بشار حافظ الأسد (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian politician and President of Syria
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus