Samira Khalil
سميرة خليل
Also known as: Samira Salama • Douma Four
Biography
Samira Khalil (born Samira Salama) was a Syrian feminist activist, co-founder of the Violations Documentation Center in Syria, and a longtime opponent of the Assad government who had spent years in prison under Hafez al-Assad. On December 9, 2013, she was abducted along with prominent human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, Razan's husband Wael Hamada, and activist Nazem Hammadi in what became known as the 'Douma Four' abduction — carried out by Jaish al-Islam, the armed group led by Zahran Alloush that controlled Douma at the time. After years of uncertainty, evidence emerged that she and the others were killed by Jaish al-Islam, likely in 2015 or 2016. Her case demonstrates that Syrian activists faced threats not only from the Assad government but from armed opposition factions that found civil society voices inconvenient.