‘Strip Assad’s wife of UK citizenship for backing evil regime’
THE wife of President Bashar al-Assad could be stripped of her dual British citizenship in the wake of the sarin gas attacks in Syria.
MPs called for the move due to Asma al-Assad’s role in the Syrian regime’s propaganda machine.
The 41-year-old, originally from Acton in west London, has at least three official social media accounts that are used to prop up her husband’s regime – which is accused of using chemical weapons on its own people.
On her Instagram, Facebook and Telegram accounts, she has told her 500,000 followers that the West is spreading lies, while praising the regime’s “martyrs” on the other hand.
She was active on the sites on April 4, the day of the recent gas attack in Khan Shaykhun, which sparked outrage worldwide.
Last night MPs and Syrians in the UK called on the Home Office to strip her of her British citizenship to send a clear signal to her husband’s bloody regime.
Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who sits on the foreign affairs committee, said: “The time has come where we go after Assad in every which way, including people like Mrs Assad, who is very much a part of the propaganda machine that is committing war crimes.”
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake said that “the British Government could say to Asma al-Assad ‘either stop using your position to defend barbaric acts or be stripped of your citizenship’ ”.
Mrs Assad was placed under UK and EU sanctions in 2012 – banning her from travelling to Europe and freezing any assets she has here. Her British passport will expire in 2020. A graduate of King’s College London, she married Assad, 51, in 2000.
They have three children and her father Fawaz Akhras, a cardiologist, still lives in Acton with his wife, Sahar.
Syrian groups also called on the Government to act over Mrs Assad’s citizenship.
Dr Haytham Alhamwi, of Rethink Rebuild Society, a group for Syrians in the UK, said: “She has assumed a direct role in promoting ideals contradictory to the British public good.”
Mrs Assad – who was briefly a banker at JP Morgan – is understood to hold dual Syrian-UK nationality. It means that removing her British citizenship would not leave her stateless – which would be illegal.
Under the British Nationality Act, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has the power to take such a step if satisfied it was “conducive to the public good”.
The power has been used about 40 times since 2010, mainly against terrorism suspects, including Britishborn citizens.
The Home Office last night declined to comment.