The eldest son of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is currently competing in the Mathematics Olympics in Rio, which he said proves that Syria, although in full-blown civil war “is much better,” reported the Brazilian press.
“We have come to show the world that the country is better, much better,” Hafez al-Assad, 15, told the Brazilian daily O Globo on the sidelines of the Mathematics Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro in which the son of President of Syria.
Et pendant ce temps-là, Hafez el-Assad, fils aîné de Bachar,participe aux olympiades de mathématiques à Rio…https://t.co/o11jnV6Pjh #Syrie
— Armin Arefi (@arminarefi) July 18, 2017
“I know what kind of man is my father,” he said. “As president, people say a lot [about him]. Many are blind. This is not the reality, “assured the teenager, in perfect English.
The newspaper explained that he had accidentally discovered the presence of son Assad among 600 participants from 111 countries competing in Rio de Janeiro.
“I have always lived as a normal child and my friends consider me a normal person,” said the young Assad, named after his late grandfather, former president Hafez al-Assad (1930- 2000).
On 17 July, participants in the 58th International Olympiad of Mathematics observed a minute of silence in memory of the Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, who died two years earlier at age 40 from cancer.
Hundreds of students, all dressed in blue, paid tribute to this Iranian woman, who in her adolescence won the famous mathematics contest two years in a row in 1994 and 1995, with a perfect score at the end of the second edition .