Bashar al Assad
Bashar al-Assad | |||||||||||||||||
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Born | Bashar Hafez al-Assad 1965-09-11 Damascus, Syria | ||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | Damascus University | ||||||||||||||||
Religion | Islam | ||||||||||||||||
Children | • Hafez Zein • Karim | ||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Asma al-Assad | ||||||||||||||||
Party | Syrian Ba'ath Party | ||||||||||||||||
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Bashar al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is the 19th and current President of Syria, holding the office since 17 July 2000. He is also commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party's branch in Syria. He is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
Contents
Medical background
Born and raised in Damascus, Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the Syrian Army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital in London, specialising in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel al-Assad died in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998.
President
On 10 July 2000, Assad was elected as President, succeeding his father, who died in office a month prior. In the 2000 and subsequent 2007 elections, he received 99.7% and 97.6% support, respectively, in referendums on his leadership.[1][2][3]
On 16 July 2014, Assad was sworn in for another seven-year term after taking 88.7% of votes in the first contested presidential election in Ba'athist Syria's history.[4][5][6] The election was criticised by media outlets as "tightly controlled" and without independent election monitors, while an international delegation led by allies of Assad issued a statement asserting that the election was "free, fair and transparent".[7][8][9] The Assad government describes itself as secular,[10] while some experts claim that the government exploits sectarian tensions in the country and relies upon the Alawite minority to remain in power.[11][12]
Insurgency
Once seen by the international community as a potential reformer, the United States, the European Union, and the majority of the Arab League called for Assad's resignation from the presidency after he allegedly ordered crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters, which led to the Syrian Civil War.[13][14][15] During the Syrian Civil War, an inquiry by the United Nations reported finding evidence which implicated Assad in war crimes.[16] In June 2014, Assad was included in a list of war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels handed to the International Criminal Court.[17] Assad has rejected allegations of war crimes, and criticised the American-led intervention in Syria for attempting regime change.[18][19] After the election of Donald Trump, the priority of the United States concerning Assad was initially not to force him out of power, but this policy quickly reversed in the wake of the 2017 Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.[20][21]
A Document by Bashar al Assad
Title | Document type | Publication date | Subject(s) | Description |
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Document:Speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on 20 August 2017 to the Syrian Diplomatic Corps | Speech | 31 August 2017 | Israel Iran Russia Turkey Vladimir Putin China Syria Donald Trump Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | The US President is not the maker of policies, but the executor. Therefore, the “Deep State” in the United States does not govern in partnership with the President, but leaves him a small margin. |
Related Documents
References
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- ↑ Bronner 2007, p. 63.
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- ↑ Meuse, Alison (18 April 2015). "Syria's Minorities: Caught Between Sword Of ISIS And Wrath of Assad". NPR. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
Karim Bitar, a Middle East analyst at Paris think tank IRIS [...] says [...] "Minorities are often used as a shield by authoritarian regimes, who try to portray themselves as protectors and as a bulwark against radical Islam."
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- ↑ King, Esther (2 November 2016). "Assad denies responsibility for Syrian war". Politico. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
The Syrian president maintained he was fighting to preserve his country and criticised the West for intervening. “Good government or bad, it’s not your mission” to change it, he said.
Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto"). - ↑ Staff writer(s) (6 October 2016). "'Bombing hospitals is a war crime,' Syria's Assad says". ITV News. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
The intense bombardment of Aleppo during an army offensive that began two weeks ago has included several strikes on hospitals, residents and medical workers there have said. But Assad denied any knowledge of such attacks, saying that there were only "allegations".
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- ↑ Treene, Alayna (6 April 2017). "Tillerson: U.S. will lead coalition to oust Assad".Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").