Bashar Alassad

Bashar al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965. The President of the Syrian Arab Republic is married to Mrs. Asma al-Assad. He studied in Damascus schools and got High School Certificate in 1982 then he joined the Medicine faculty at Damascus University and graduated in 1988. He specialized in Ophthalmology at Tishreen Military Hospital before pursuing his studies in London until 1994.

His public activities before assuming office included numerous political and vocational tasks. He headed the Syrian Computer Society, SCS, in 1995, and worked to spread the culture of information technology nationwide. Since 1995 he has been supervising the reform programs of the two Ministries of Education and Higher Education. In 1977 he launched the national program of informatics in cooperation with the Ministry of Education to allow free access to informatics through free-of-charge training centers.

Bashar al-Assad was not involved in Syria politics until his elder brother and unofficial heir of Hafez Alassad Basel was killed in a car accident in 1994. Bashar had instead chosen a career in medicine and was studying to become an ophthalmologist in London when his father recalled him to Damascus after his brother’s death. As a vast press campaign increased his popularity in Syria, Bashar underwent an accelerated grooming process to prepare him for the presidency.

He joined the military as an officer at the Medical Services Department in 1985, and pursued numerous military training courses. Bashar graduated from an armor school in Homs and returned to Damascus in December 1994. Since most political figures of any consequence in Syria have military backgrounds, Bashar’s having theoretically become a soldier lent him at least a facade of credibility. Bashar was primarily responsible for ensuring the proper operation of Syrian government agencies, many of which are riven with incompetence and corruption.

Hafez Alassad died in 10/6/2000, in this day the Syrian Parliament held a conference and amended the Syrian Constitution in silly way the amended the article 83 from the constitution, which specifies the Syrian President age as 40 years to 34 Bashar Alassad age on that day. In 11/06/2000 he was promoted to the rank of Lt. Gen. and appointed as Commander General of the Army and Armed Forces. He was elected as Chairman of Al-Baath Arab Socialist Party in June 2000, and was elected on 10/07/2000 President of the Republic and assumed office after he was sworn in before the People’s Assembly on 17/07/2000.

Bashar was said not to be happy with the system he inherited, though he had done little to change it, and he did not expect that power can be passed down the Asad family line forever. A peace agreement with Israel, which for Bashar would have to include the return of the Golan, would assure for Bashar himself survival at the head of the regime but not necessarily for his sons. In the absence of peace, Bashar had to accept that security issues are paramount in Syria. But with peace, the reform process – economic, political, and social – could prosper. Although Bashar was said to genuinely believes that peace and reform were necessary, it is said that his UK-raised wife Asma prodded him continually to move along that path.

The President was re-elected as Chairman of Al-Baath Party and its Central Committee by the 10th Congress in May 2005. He was re-elected as President on May 27th, 2007 and was sworn in before the People’s Assembly on July 17th 2007, ushering in for 2nd constitutional term of office. In the run-up to the vote, the regime devoted significant effort and money to transform Syrian President Bashar al-Asad into the symbol of Syria and Syrians. They wanted to make him into an untouchable personality, in the style of former President Hafez al-Asad, although Bashar had no charisma or discernible political skills. The referendum serves as a good catalyst for this transformation. The late President Hafiz al-Asad could wear down his interlocutors through sheer staying power in 10-hour meetings without breaks; the wealth of detail and historical perspective he brought to those discussions also tested the mettle of those who were attempting to persuade him to a course of action he questioned. His son Bashar is neither as shrewd nor as long-winded as his father but he, too, prefers to engage diplomatically on a level of abstraction that seems designed to frustrate any direct challenge to Syria’s behavior and, by extension, his judgment. Bashar’s presentations on world affairs suggest that he would prefer to see himself as a sort of philosopher-king, the Pericles of Damascus.

Bashar al-Asad does not rule exclusively by diktat, but in his minority-led regime the Syrian policy-making dynamic revolves heavily around getting the President’s ear. Since the low point in 2005 when Bashar’s grip on power – post Lebanon-withdrawal – was widely questioned, he has solidified his position, averted the emergence of rivals, and imposed his will across the apparatus of government. Bashar’s success in ensuring his own survival convinced him of the near-infallibility of his own judgment: while his entourage may attempt to shape his thinking, they do not overtly challenge it. Bashar is the key – only his opinion counts when it comes to foreign policy decisions.

Despite promises of human rights reform, not much has changed since Bashar al-Assad took office. For nearly a decade, he successfully suppressed internal dissention, due mostly to the close relationship between the Syrian military and intelligence agencies. In 2006, Syria expanded its use of travel bans against dissidents, preventing many from entering or leaving the country. In 2007, the Syrian Parliament passed a law requiring all comments on chat forums to be posted publicly. In 2008, and again in 2011, social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook were blocked. Human rights groups have reported that political opponents of Bashar al-Assad are routinely tortured, imprisoned and killed.

Following successful regime change in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, protests began in Syria on January 26, 2011, demanding political reforms, a reinstatement of civil rights and an end to the state of emergency, which had been in place since 1963. Bashar Alassad ended the state of emergency In 21/4/2011 but the behavior of the forces in the ground dindn’t chang. Outraged by government inaction, the protests spread and became larger. In May 2011, the Syrian military responded with violent crackdowns in the town of Homs and the suburbs of Damascus. In June, Bashar promised a national dialogue and new parliamentary elections, but no change came, and the protests continued. That same month, opposition activists established a “National Council” to lead a Syrian revolution.

In 31/5/2011 Bashar Alassad announced a Presidential pardon in this pardon all the Islamic extremist get released such as Zahran Alloush and Jamal Marouf and many others who became militant leaders in the Syrian war, in other hand many of the political prisoners who belongs to civil parties stayed in prisons. and the Syrian Military and his alliance continued the operation in the ground to stop the popular movement.

By the fall of 2011, many countries were calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s resignation and the Arab League suspended Syria, leading the Syrian government to agree to allow Arab observers into the country. In January 2012, the Reuters News Agency reported that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed by the Syrian militia (Shabeeha), and that 1,000 people had been killed by anti-regime forces. That March, the United Nations endorsed a peace plan that was drafted by former UN Secretary Kofi Annan, but this didn’t stop the violence.

In June 2012, a UN official stated that the uprisings had transitioned into a full-scale civil war. The conflict continues, with daily reports of the killing of scores of civilians by government forces, and counter-claims by the al-Assad regime of the killings beging staged or the result of outside agitators.

President Bashar al-Assad has continued to demonstrate tremendous disregard for human life in his efforts to hold onto power. In August 2013, he has come under fire from leaders around the world, including U.S. president Barack Obama and British prime minister David Cameron, for using chemical weapons against civilians. This action resulted in the deaths of women and children, and some Western countries are debating what steps should be taken against al-Assad and his regime.