Asma al-Assad

Asma al-Assad herself remains able to travel to the UK because of her British nationality but she is barred from entering the rest of the EU.

On 16 April 2012, Huberta von Voss Wittig and Sheila Lyall Grant, the wives of the German and British ambassadors to the United Nations, released a four-minute video asking Asma al-Assad to stand up for peace and urge her husband to end the bloodshed in her country.

She has not been seen in public regularly since the July bombing of the Military Intelligence Directorate leading to press speculation and government denials that she had fled the country.

In March 2011, Vogue published a glowing profile of the first lady titled "A Rose in the Desert" authored by fashion writer, Joan Juliet Buck. The article was later removed from Vogue's website without editorial comment that spring. Responding to media inquiries about the disappearance of Assad's profile, Vogue’s editor stated that "as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that Syria's priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue". After strong public and media reaction to the article, Buck's contract was not renewed with Vogue though she had been employed by Vogue for over 30 years and had been an editor of French Vogue for seven years. The New York Times later reported that the piece was intended as part of a larger Syrian government-sponsored image campaign coordinated by the public relations firm Brown Lloyd James. Read Less