Bouthaina Shaaban

Education

University of Warwick.

Career

Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and has been described as the Syrian government"s face to the outside world. Between 1985 and 2003 she was also the professor of Romantic poetry at the English department of Damascus University. In August 2011, the United States sanctioned Shaaban together with other Syrian officials "in response to the Syrian government"s crackdown against anti-government protesters".

She is the author of "Both Right and Left Handed: Arab Women Talk About Their Lives" (1988).

A book composed mostly of interviews with Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Algerian women, Shaaban invites them to talk openly about their lives and the roles of women in their societies, how they feel they"ve changed through different times of war and crisis, and what they think the future holds for Arab women. In 2005 Shaaban was presented with "the Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position" award by the Arab League.

Achievements

• In 2005 Shaaban was presented with "the Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position" award by the Arab League.

Politics

Born in Homs and a member of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba"ath Party since the age of 16, she was educated in Britain and obtained her Doctor of Philosophy in English literature from the University of Warwick. Under Hafez she became an "adviser to the Foreign Ministry," and in 2003 she was named Minister of Expatriates, "a new post created to try to lure wealthy Syrian expatriates abroad — or at least their resources — back home." In 2008 she was appointed political and media adviser to president Bashar al-Assad. Shaaban was particularly visible in English-speaking media after the Valentine"s Day 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, when she did several television interviews and wrote several oped pieces attacking the United Nations probe into Syrian involvement in the murder and insisted that Israel and the United States were responsible for Hariri"s murder.