Syria’s first lady: I support my husband

After weeks of silence, the wife of Syria’s President Bashar Assad spoke out on the violence occurring in her country. In an article to be published Wednesday in the Times of London, Asma Assad is said to support her husband’s bloody crackdown on protesters, which left hundreds dead over the last few weeks.

On Tuesday, The Times’ foreign editor, Richard Beeston, tweeted:

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According to The Times’ website (viewable for paid subscribers), Asma Assad “appears to offer full support to her husband as his security forces try to crush the opposition, but also claims to be encouraging dialogue and comforting the bereaved.” Syrian experts and opposition activists reacted with “anger and incredulity” to her remarks, the paper states. “They accused her of an ‘ostrich attitude,’ ‘intolerable hypocrisy’ and being delusional.”

Born and educated in London, Asma Assad comes from a Sunni Muslim family from the Syrian town of Homs, where most of the reported massacres against protesters have taken place. After having met Assad during a trip to Syria, she quit her finance job and moved to Damascus in 2000, the year her husband replaced his late father as the country’s president.

Considered highly intelligent, Asma Assad until recently was seen in a positive light by Western media. Journalists called her a “rose in the desert” and “a ray of light in a country full of shadow zones.” But after staying mum in the wake of her husband’s brutal crackdown on protests, her image changed, with some comparing her to a “modern-day Marie-Antoinette.”

Within hours of Beeston’s announcement, his tweet has been reposted nearly a hundred times, often eliciting cynical remarks:

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