Asma Assad, Syria President's Wife, Urged To Stop Her Husband In New Video

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, April 17 (Reuters) - The wives of U.N. ambassadors from Britain and Germany targeted Syria's first lady on Tuesday with an online appeal to "stop your husband" in his yearlong bid to quash a popular uprising that has left thousands dead.

The video contrasts the lavish lifestyle of 36-year-old Asma al-Assad, wife of President Bashar al-Assad and mother of three, with the images of dead and injured Syrian children.

"Stand up for peace, Asma. Speak out now. For the sake of your people. Stop your husband," asks the video. "Stop being a bystander. No one cares about your image. We care about your action."

The video () asks viewers to sign a petition at www.change.org demanding the London-born first lady speak out to "stop the bloodshed."

It was produced by Sheila Lyall Grant, the wife of Britain's U.N. envoy, and Huberta von Voss-Wittig, the wife of Germany's U.N. ambassador. Britain and Germany are both members of the U.N. Security Council.

"We strongly believe in Asma's responsibility as a woman, as a wife and as a mother. As the vocal female Arab leader that she used to be, as a champion of female equality, she can not hide behind her husband," Lyall Grant and Wittig said in a statement.

A former investment banker, Asma al-Assad once cultivated the image of a serious-minded woman inspired by Western values.

But she appears to have continued a life of luxury shopping during the uprising against the four-decade rule of the Assad family. E-mails exchanged with her husband, obtained by Britain's Guardian newspaper, apparently showed they were buying pop music and luxury goods on the Internet during the conflict.

The European Union has banned Asma al-Assad from traveling to the EU or shopping from European companies.

"Some women are for style and some women care for their people. Some women struggle for their image and some women struggle for their survival," says the video.

The U.N. estimates Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the uprising. Syrian authorities say foreign-backed militants have killed over 2,600 soldiers and police.

The 15-nation U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to authorize an initial deployment of 30 unarmed observers to monitor a shaky truce that started on Thursday.

Photos: Asma Assad

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• Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad listens to a speech by her husband, President Bashar al-Assad, during a rare public appearance in Damascus on January 11, 2012. Assad vowed to defeat a 'conspiracy' against Syria, a day after he blamed foreign interests for stoking months of deadly violence. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (C-R) and First Lady Asma al-Assad (C-L) arrive at Al-Jalaa Stadium in Damascus on June 30, 2011 to meet with regime supporters who made the biggest Syrian flag as a deadly crackdown continued on democracy protests across the country. (-/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's wife Asma gestures as she speaks at the Bristol hotel on December 11, 2010 in Paris. Al-Assad is on a two-days official visit to France. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's wife Asma poses at the Bristol hotel on December 11, 2010 in Paris. Al-Assad is on a two-days official visit to France. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma walk in a street of Paris on December 10, 2010. ( MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma leave the Bristol hotel on December 10, 2010 in Paris. Al-Assad is on a two-days official visit to France. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma walk in a street of Paris on December 10, 2010. Al-Assad is on a two-days official visit to France. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's wife Asma speaks during a meeting at the International diplomatic academy on December 10, 2010 in Paris. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's wife Asma gestures as she speaks during a meeting at the International diplomatic academy on December 10, 2010 in Paris. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

• The wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Asma, listens to national anthems during welcoming ceremonies on April 27, 2009 for her husband at the presidential in Vienna at the start of his two-day state visit. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Comments

[Siebenstein]

10:17 PM on 04/21/2012

I don't know why people think she would be any different than her genocidal husband?

[ricknupstate]

06:14 AM on 04/19/2012

She is so pretty.

[Siebenstein]

10:17 PM on 04/21/2012

Uh, no.

[1sthander]

05:47 AM on 04/19/2012

I have no idea why anyone would spend a single moment of time trying to reason with this beast. Your time is wasted on her - on convincing HER - when people are dieing. Your time is better spent on providing support to those who seek to remove her and her husband - from the earth if necessary. Your thoughts are lovely - but few women I know are not beyond becoming fierce protectors - eliminating dangers to save the innocent. Stop trying to be seen as clever and DO something that will actually END the problem.

[engineer sci]

05:19 AM on 04/19/2012

We are caught up in a terribly thick Web of ego that blinds the living daylights out of us -- and the only way that we can be tricked into seeing the truth about ourselves is for it to be reflected in others.

Assad's father essentially massacred a rebellious city of 10,000, yet then there wasn't this Arab Spring political climate. There was also plenty of internal Syrian state terror as well when Her Majesty had the Assad's over for some tea and crumpets not that long back.

As well, would not the fimed appeal have been more poignant by showing various courageous spouses of past Prime Ministers and Chancellors standing up against all the not very nice goings on on behalf of Empire and Fatherland. In relatively liberal-at-home places, with no fear for personal safety, surely there are plentiful role models to inspire Asma?

Perhaps these diplomat wives, risking greater prestige and high society approval by taking up a universally popular, politically safe cause through a rhetorical piece saying nothing negative about the saints back home, thought that sufficiently inspiring by itself.

In the end we must all soul search. We can wonder fearfully if our own words in seeing others will be used against us in a court of Divine justice. But perhaps more constructively, we could all truly take up our fellow's cause through education and environment that seriously sets the pychological tone necessary to inspire even our own egos towards mutual responsibility.

[tccat4]

04:32 AM on 04/19/2012

A Muslim women shoot her husband.. the courts would make sure she was stoned to death. The old saying of " Look beautiful and keep your mouth shut in less I ask you" applies. Little do any of us know what goes behind their closed doors.
England born and educated does not mean she can convince her murdering husband anything.

[Bentch]

04:11 AM on 04/19/2012

Wifes on heads of state like Asma live in denial. They have detached themself where they might as well be living on Mars. They can't see the Forrest because of all the Trees. In the end they will either meet a faith like Musolini or hide away in some other country for the rest of their life. They say "I had nothing to do with it". Well - You did nothing to stop it either. Either way - Asma - your will be judged eventually by a higher power in the end.

[tarzan322]

03:52 AM on 04/19/2012

Syria may technically be a republic, but in reality it is run by the President and his backing party. That party happens to be none other than the radical Ba'ath party, the same people that were backing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It's unlikely they are going to release power in Syria, they have been there a long time. They were also backing the insurgency in Iraq.

[florencebrady]

03:45 AM on 04/19/2012

I think the women who made the "appeal" need to study some history. Marie Antoinette is laughing at them.

[Dick Stone]

03:41 AM on 04/19/2012

The wives of the Ambassadors are fools, they have absolutely no idea what is going on in Syria. The legal and legitimate authority in Syria has every right to defend itself from the attackers that are hiding behind women and children. This is a ploy to get the UN to once again aid Great Britain and Germany to have another regime change, gain control and plunder the resources. The media continues to play along, just as they did with the UN and US lead attacks on Libya, and it was all done in the interest of the French, British, Germans, and at the expense of the average citizens that lived, prospered and had peaceful lives there.

[4given4ever]

05:22 AM on 04/19/2012

In years past they may not have known what their husbands were up to but with the internet and news it is hard to believe that a modern women like her would not know. She knows more than you thinlk.

[Dick Stone]

05:13 PM on 04/19/2012

I was talking about the wives from Great Britain, and Germany, not having a clue as to what is going on in Syria. The facts are the Syrian military and Syrian police are been fired on with automatic weapons, and rocket propelled grenades, and the thugs firing on them are hiding in the midst of women and children. The military has to return fire or die.

[Gloria M]

03:21 AM on 04/19/2012

I understand this but a wife or woman in a mans life has no word. Powerful men don't listen to their wives, they do what they want. If you don't like it leave that's what they say.
People just kill this mad man and let the other crazy men in your country run it the same way.

[Monique Santiago]

03:06 AM on 04/19/2012

Wow, am crushed. The world is so hateful, but too kill innocent children and families is heart wrenching. When people can do something to stop the bloodshed and make a difference and instead to nothing to me is unthinkable. Have a great life Asma. Her own people will will hate her and she really has nothing. The Assad family will have their own awakening as all bad leader fall including wives. Asma is looking for her style she needs to get a new name. She sounds like a breathing problem. God bless the innocent people. America is always in other peoples affairs, but do we stand here and watch this continue. Sorry am ranting.

[jed73312]

02:24 AM on 04/19/2012

Some of the things I have read about this woman and her husband makes me hope that they both end up like Benito Mussolini and his wife, drug through the streets then executed!

[Lanette London]

03:42 AM on 04/19/2012

It was Mussolini and his mistress.Not his wife. They were not drug through the streets. They were shot near :Lake Como and the dead bodies where then hung upside down and displayed.

[hsiashang]

02:21 AM on 04/19/2012

What makes anybody think Bashar al-Assad gives a rat's @ss what his wife thinks anyway. Middle eastern men generally are pretty much the autocrats of their families, and being the world's most dedicated male chauvinists are unlikely to take advice from their wives, This would be especially true for a man who is the sovereign head of state, albeit a very corrupt sovereign. Asma al-Assad has probably has no influence on him even if she doesn't agree with the way he is handling the situation.

[David McElveen]

02:10 AM on 04/19/2012

I was expecting something totally different. The AOL headline says "Dictators Wife Slammed in Video", right above a picture of this smokin' hot lady. I was dissappointed to find this article instead.

[4given4ever]

05:25 AM on 04/19/2012

She is smokein a lot of innocent people.

[KAO22]

01:49 AM on 04/19/2012

Asma proves the old adage - beauty is only skin deep.