page_title: Bashar al-Assad
section_title: Human rights
hierarchical_section_title: Bashar al-Assad / Syria under Bashar al-Assad's rule / Human rights
context_page_description: Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who has been the President of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and Regional Secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's branch in Syria. His father, Hafez al-Assad, was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
  Born and raised in Damascus, Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988 and began to work as a doctor in the Syrian Army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital in London, specialising in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel died in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian military presence in Lebanon in 1998.
  Political scientists have characterized the Assad family's rule of Syria as a personalist dictatorship. On 17 July 2000, Assad became President, succeeding his father, who died in office a month prior. In the uncontested and non-democratic 2000 and 2007 elections he received 97.29% and 97.6% support, respectively.
context_section_description: A 2007 law required internet cafés to record all the comments users post on chat forums. Websites such as Arabic Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook were blocked intermittently between 2008 and February 2011.
  Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how the Assad government's secret police allegedly tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the government. In addition, some 600 Lebanese political prisoners are thought to be held in government prisons since the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, with some held for as long as over 30 years. Since 2006, the Assad government has expanded the use of travel bans against political dissidents. In an interview with ABC News in 2007, Assad stated: "We don't have such [things as] political prisoners," though The New York Times reported the arrest of 30 Syrian political dissidents who were organising a joint opposition front in December 2007, with 3 members of this group considered to be opposition leaders being remanded in custody.
  In 2010, Syria banned face veils at universities. Following the Syrian uprising in 2011, Assad partially relaxed the veil ban.
  Foreign Policy magazine released an editorial on Assad's position in the wake of the 2011 protests:
  During its decades of rule... the Assad family developed a strong political safety net by firmly integrating the military into the government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, seized power after rising through the ranks of the Syrian armed forces, during which time he established a network of loyal Alawites by installing them in key posts. In fact, the military, ruling elite, and ruthless secret police are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate the Assad government from the security establishment.... So... the government and its loyal forces have been able to deter all but the most resolute and fearless oppositional activists. In this respect, the situation in Syria is to a certain degree comparable to Saddam Hussein's strong Sunni minority rule in Iraq.
caption: Billboard with a portrait of Bashar al-Assad and the text 'Syria is protected by God' on the old city wall of Damascus in 2006
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