A little-noticed 14-minute clip of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad — pushed to YouTube by supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime — underscores the broad but uneven efforts of pro-government elements to leverage social media.
The YouTube video was published last week on YouTube on the accunt AmazingNews99, which hosts more than 150 pro-regime and anti-opposition videos. It’s titled “Nice Asma El Assad feeding the poor who have lost everything” and the description reads: “Compare to terrorits [sic] sunni JEW NATO Al Quaida [sic], who use people to bark against Assad.”
It shows Syria’s glamorous U.K.-raised first lady surrounded by bereaved mothers at the presidential palace in Damascus.
The video begins with several of what it calls “martyrs’ mothers” speaking testimonial-style about their fallen sons. At the three-minute mark they proceed into the palace and are welcomed one-by-one with a hug from a smiling first lady. After another two minutes she steps to a microphone to comfort them. She speaks for ten minutes before posing for photos and serving the women food from a buffet. After the address, photos, and buffet, a children’s choir sings a nationalistic song and the camera pans to Damascus’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“You have shown that while your children are one of the things you love most, you love your country even more,” Assad says in familiar, colloquial Arabic. “Instead of fearing for yourselves, fearing for your lives, you feared for all of Syria,” she says. “Instead of your children fearing only for you, they [the soldiers] feared for all the mothers in the country. They went to protect the country knowing that Syria, the homeland, is the mother of all.”
The video had been aired on Syrian state media and posted to the Syrian president’s Facebook page. It was uploaded to YouTube by supporters of the regime, who have waged prominent social media campaigns on behalf of Assad dating back to the conflict’s early days:
In recent weeks and months, as Syria has become increasingly mired in violence and bloodshed, Assad loyalists have taken the fight to social media, using Twitter, blogs, Facebook and even sophisticated hacking techniques to flood the web with pro-regime messaging.
The most high-profile of these attempts came last week, when a group calling itself the “Syrian Electronic Army” hacked into Harvard University’s website and posted a picture of Assad in army fatigues above text accusing the United States of supporting a “policy of killing” in Syria.
The Electronic Army’s Facebook page links to these other online pro-Assad groups, which post in Arabic and English. Some have videos of atrocities allegedly committed by anti-government protesters, others feature pictures of a nattily-attired Assad standing before fluttering Syrian flags, adoring crowds or a lion. Then there are these music videos on YouTube, that literally sing the dictator’s praises.
Asma al-Assad herself has become a controversial figure. Raised by Syrian parents in privileged circumstances in London, she became first lady in 2000. She was the subject of a now-infamous fawning Vogue cover piece published the same month Syria’s brutal crackdown began.
[Photo: AmazingNews99 / Youtube]