Bouthaina Shaaban

Bouthaina Shaaban (بثينة شعبان) (born 1953) is a Syrian politician and is currently the political and media adviser to the President of Syria. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and has been described as the Syrian "regime's face to the outside world."

Life and education
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 Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Warwick. She is married with two daughters and a son.

Career
Shaaban worked first as an interpreter for the Syrian presidents Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad. 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. Between 1985 and 2003 she was also the professor of Romantic poetry at the English department of Damascus University.

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.

In August 2011, the US sanctioned Shaaban together with other Syrian officials in response to the Syrian regime's crackdown against anti-government protesters.

Connections to Syrian leadership
Shaaban's rise within the Syrian regime is due to her close friendship with Bushra Al-Assad. Sometime in the late 1980s, Shaaban also introduced Bushra to her future husband Assef Shawkat.

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