Personal images of ousted Syrian President Bashar a-Assad have surfaced from his deserted residences, sparking ridicule amongst Syrians who till days in the past had been persecuted for criticising his rigorously crafted public picture.
The intimate and candid images, reportedly found in albums from Assad’s mansions within the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, provide a stark distinction to the polished, glamorous picture that Assad and his father projected as they led Syria for half a century.
Syrians have been fascinated by the background glimpses of a seemingly regular household that held the nation in an iron grip and bombed some their fellow residents considered a menace.
The sharing of images has grow to be an extension of the dazed first hours after Assad’s ouster every week in the past, when on a regular basis Syrians wandered the presidential palace and its dishevelled indicators of a speedy departure. Assad has been granted asylum in Russia.
For many Syrians who had endured pressured imprisonment, displacement and oppression below the Assads, the images function each a spectacle and an opportunity to exhale, even snicker.
