The Swedish Observatory remembers Razan Zaitouneh
8 years, and 10 months ago, Razan Zaitouneh was kidnapped in Douma, Syria. The Swedish Observatory for Human Rights Information calls on the United Nations, international and regional actors, and all parties to the Syrian conflict to actively facilitate an investigation into what happened to Razan Zaitouneh. She is among many Syrians who have been kidnapped, jailed, murdered or exiled for their peaceful human rights activities. Moreover, we ask all friends and supporters to help remember Zaitouneh by sharing her work.
On 09 December 2013, a group of armed men presumed to be connected to the Army of Islam, a large local rebel faction at the time, broke into the Violations Documentation Centre (VDC) office in Douma city, kidnapped Razan and took her to an unknown destination. According to unconfirmed reports, the Army of Islam kept captives, including possibly the VDC staff, at Tawbeh Prison for some time, but it has since been abandoned following the armed group’s departure from Douma in 2017.
Zaitouneh has published dozens of articles and reports on various websites and in newspapers about human rights including freedom of opinion and expression in Syria since 2004. She is one of the most prominent human rights defenders in Syria and along with other activists established the VDC, among several human rights NGOs that she helped found. Razan has played a key role in the promotion and protection of human rights through her brave work as a lawyer, human rights defender and journalist.
Ms. Zaitouneh, was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and the 2011 Anna Politkovskaya Award of Reach All Women in War (RAW in WAR). In 2013, the then-U.S.A First Lady Michelle Obama honored her as an International Woman of Courage. Zaitouneh was also a finalist for the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.
At the beginning of the popular protests that spread across Syria in 2011, Zaitouneh was forced into hiding owing to her media activism and her reporting on what was happening on the ground to various media outlets. Zaitouneh’s home in Damascus was raided in May 2011 by the government’s Air Force Intelligence, which then detained her brother-in-law and her husband Wa’el Hamada for three months. A few months before her abduction in 2013, Zaitouneh wrote about the threats she had been receiving and reported to human rights organisations outside Syria that the threats were from local armed groups in Douma.
The Swedish Observatory for Human Rights Information remembers Razan Zaitouneh.
