Syrian U.N. envoy claims media ‘fabricated lies’ about him and his family

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari , whose daughter served as an advisor to President Bashar al-Assad, has become the international face of the Syrian government as it faces mounting international condemnation over the country’s bloody conflict.

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said Friday that he and his family had been the target of death threats and that he had alerted U.S. authorities.

Jaafari, whose daughter served as an advisor to President Bashar al-Assad, has become the international face of the Syrian government as it faces mounting international condemnation over the country’s bloody conflict.

According to AFP, the envoy told the U.N. General Assembly he was “proud to defend the interests of my nation against all conspiracies.”

But in countering a resolution condemning his government, Jaafari hit out at the death threats and at personal attacks he said had been made by the media in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“There have been several threats of murder against me and various Syrian diplomats from sites that exist in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the United States,” Jaafari was quoted by AFP as telling the 193-member assembly before the Saudi-sponsored resolution was passed.

“Saudi and Qatari media are no longer satisfied with targeting my country but have targeted me personally and members my family in an immoral way, an unethical way and a shameful way.”

He said entire television programs in the two countries devoted to him had “fabricated lies and false statements to distort the reputation of members of my family.”

Jaafari did not say which members of his family had been targeted but his 22-year-old daughter Sheherazad Jaafari (often referred to as Sherry) has been featured widely in Western and Arab media since the start of the conflict. She is due to start a course at Columbia University in New York next month.

“Diplomacy is one thing but having members of your family targeted for that is something else entirely, and I leave that to your conscience all of you,” Jaafari told U.N. ambassadors in the assembly.

Afterwards, the Syrian envoy told reporters that he had informed U.S. authorities of the threats against him, AFP reported.

Sheherazad was in early 2011 an intern at international public relations firm Brown Lloyd James (BLJ) in New York who had the Syrian government as a client, offering advice on strategy for handling and improving the public image of the regime as it escalated its violent crackdown on protesters. She then left BLJ to work at the Syrian presidential palace, where she handled Western media for Assad.

BLJ managed to feature the Syrian first lady in Vogue magazine in an article written by long-time contributor to the magazine Joan Juliet Buck.

Al Arabiya obtained an email by BLJ partner Mike Holtzman to Sheherazad (who was still working with BLJ and arranging for the Vogue story) on December 13, 2010 asking her to “remember that Joan has no impression at all of Syria.”

According to the leaked email, Holtzman goes on to instruct Sherry to “not mention anything controversial to her (Joan)”, this included “lists Syria maybe on, rumor, etc.”

After the leaked emails were published by Al Arabiya, Buck confirmed in an article in the Daily Beast that she met Holtzman and Sheherazad in Syria.

Furthermore, leaked emails revealed how Sheherazad almost single handedly arranged for well-known American journalist Barbara Waters secure an interview with Assad in December 2011.

An angry backlash in Damascus after the interview was aired did not prevent Sheherazad from staying in touch with Walters but she even asked her for endorsement to enroll at the prestigious graduate program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

The Al Arabiya leaked emails also exposed that famed U.S. journalist Charlie Rose was asking Sheherazad for help in securing an interview with Assad simultaneously as she was asking him for help to find a job in the U.S.

“I love u and I would love to be ur assistant,” she wrote to Rose, whom she describes in another email as her "favorite Anchor!”, on Jan. 23, 2012. In his reply, Rose said he appreciates Sherry’s enthusiasm for him and his work, but he has doesn't have time to meet.

In the series of Sheherazad’s leaked emails published in July, Al Arabiya English refrained from publishing any emails or photos deemed personal.