Razan Zaitouneh

Explore about the Famous Journalist Razan Zaitouneh, who was born in Syria on April 29, 1977. Analyze Razan Zaitouneh’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is Razan Zaitouneh dating now? Look into this article to know how old is Razan Zaitouneh?

Razan Zaitouneh Biography

Razan Zaitouneh (or Zeitunah; Arabic: رزان زيتونة ‎; born 29 April 1977) is a Syrian human rights lawyer and civil society activist. Actively involved in the Syrian uprising, she went into hiding after being accused by the government of being a foreign agent and her husband was arrested. Zaitouneh has documented human rights in Syria for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Zaitouneh was kidnapped on 9 December 2013, most likely by Jaysh al-Islam. As of August 2018, her fate remained unknown. It was suspected that she had been killed.

Zaitouneh graduated from law school in 1999 and in 2001 started her work as lawyer.

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.

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.

Her husband, Wael Hamadeh (or Wael Hamada, or Wa’el Hammada) was arrested on 12 May 2011. His brother ‘Abd al-Rahman Hammada was also arrested. Wael Hamadeh was questioned in prison about his wife’s human rights work, then Wael Hamadeh released on 1 August 2011.

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, of which she was one of the founders.

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.

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 Army of Islam was responsible.

As of August 2018, Associated Press (AP) was unaware of significant evidence for Zaitouneh’s fate. AP stated clues suggesting that Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) had detained Zaitouneh and held her in Tawbeh Prison. Jaysh al-Islam denied the claim. One clue was graffiti seen by several witnesses on a prison cell wall stating, “I miss my mother — Razan Zaitouneh, 2016.” Another clue was the use of one of the Violations Documentation Center computers, taken together with Zaitouneh in the December 2013 kidnapping, from a Jaysh al-Islam IP address at Tawbeh Prison. Another opposition activist, Mazen Darwish, stated that Zaitouneh was held by Jaysh al-Islam until early 2017. AP judged it likely that Zaitouneh had been killed.

On 17 February 2020, one of the Syrian intelligence agencies declared that it had discovered a mass grave in al-Ub around the eastern Ghouta dictrict, containing around 70 bodies. One of them appeared to be that of Razan Zaitouneh.

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