The PR firm that helped former Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi and the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad manage their images has a new, pretty ironic client, Mother Jones reported today. The firm, Brown Lloyd James, is now working for Human Rights project, which is hosting a contest to try to find an international logo for human rights, akin to the peace sign. But in the past, the firm has represented some far less savory characters. Dave Gilson writes, "in November 2010 the strategic communications agency landed a $5,000-a-month contract in which it 'liased' between Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad and Vogue." (That didn't go well for anyone involved.) Prior to that, the firm worked for Qaddafi in 2008. "Brown Lloyd James signed a contract with a Libyan oil-drilling magnate to help Colonel Muammar Qaddafi clean up his international image. To that end, the firm assisted with an op-ed in his name and 'reached out to newspaper editors to discuss placement and proposed edits.' It also helped set up speeches for him at the United Nations and Georgetown University." A PR firm can represent whoever it wants, of course, but having worked for the family of a strong-man president now accused of murdering protestors and a dictator newly branded as an Interpol fugitive will probably undercut Brown Lloyd James's new mission to find the peace sign of human rights.

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Adam Martin