Razan Zaitouneh

Zaitouneh graduated from law school in Damascus in 1999 and in 2001 started her work as a lawyer. ==Legal and human rights activism==

She has been a member of the team of lawyers for defense of political prisoners since 2001. In the same year, Razan was one of the founders of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). In 2005, Razan Zaitouneh established SHRIL (the Syrian Human Rights Information Link), through which she continues to report about human rights violations in Syria. From 2005 through to her 2013 disappearance, Razan Zaitouneh was an active member of the Committee to Support Families of Political Prisoners in Syria. Syrian State television aired announcement that Razan Zaitouneh was a foreign agent on 23 March 2011, after which she went into hiding while continuing her legal and human rights work, in order to avoid being arrested. Zaitouneh founded the Violations Documentation Center in Syria in April 2011 to document human rights violations and abuses in the country by all sides. She also contributed to human rights violations reports circulated by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, On 27 October 2011, she was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of thought, jointly with four other Arabs. She was previously awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award by Reach All Women in War. In 2013 Razan Zaitouneh was granted the International Women of Courage Award. ==2013 disappearance==

Pro-opposition websites reported that on 9 December 2013 Zaitouneh had been kidnapped along with her husband, Wael Hamadeh, and two colleagues, Samira Khalil and Nazem Hammadi, in the opposition-held town of Douma to the north of Damascus. As of December 2015, their whereabouts were still unknown and the identity of the kidnappers uncertain, although it was suspected that the Islamist Salafi rebel group Jaysh al-Islam was responsible. ==See also==

• Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2011 • The 2011 Anna Politkovskaya Award • The Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought for the year 2012 in Berlin ==References==