Razan Zaitouneh
رزان زيتونة
Also known as: Razan Zeitouneh • Razan Zaituneh
Journeys
Razan Zaitouneh: The Activist Assad Couldn't Catch — Taken by His Enemies Instead
Zaitouneh's abduction by Jaish al-Islam illustrates the multiple threats Syrian civil society faced. The regime wanted her dead for documenting its crimes. Extremist rebel factions wanted her silenced for her secular, feminist, non-sectarian vision of Syria's future. She fell victim to the second threat. Her case remains unresolved as of 2024.
Razan Zaitouneh: The Disappeared Conscience of the Revolution
Razan Zaitouneh's story encapsulates the revolution's tragedy: persecuted by the regime for documenting its crimes, then abducted by the opposition forces that were supposed to protect the territory she had fled to.
Razan Zaitouneh: Witness to Everything — Silenced by Her Own Side
The most complete account of the woman who documented Assad's crimes — and was then kidnapped by an Islamist faction she had also criticized.
Biography
Razan Zaitouneh was Syria's most prominent human rights lawyer and activist, known for documenting Assad regime atrocities and founding the Violations Documentation Center (VDC) in 2011. She worked underground in Damascus after the uprising began, then moved to opposition-held Douma in 2013. On December 9, 2013, she was abducted along with her husband Wael Hamada, activist Samira al-Khalil, and lawyer Nazem Hammadi by armed men belonging to Jaish al-Islam — the rebel group led by Zahran Alloush. This became known as the 'Douma Four' case. Their fate remains unknown. She had won multiple international human rights awards. Her abduction by an opposition faction revealed that the threat to civil society in Syria came from multiple directions.