Razan Zaitouneh - 2011, "Arab Spring", Syria

In spite of being threatened, Razan Zaitouneh bravely denounced human rights violations by the Damascus regime and rebel fighters alike. She was kidnapped together with her husband and fellow activist, Wael Hamada, and two colleagues, the poet and lawyer Nazem Hamadi and former political prisoner Samira Khalil. Both of them worked for the office of the two groups she founded in Douma - the Violations Documentation Centre and the Local Development and Small Projects Support Office.

Zaitouneh is one of the most prominent and credible civilian activists of the Syrian Revolution. Her kidnapping is seen by Syrian commentators as a defining episode in the division between the civilian forces and the extremists, and an event that has dealt a fatal blow in the Syrian revolt against Bashar al-Assad. Zaitouneh is still missing, no one has claimed responsibility for her kidnapping and her whereabouts are unknown.

Her family has appealed for international help to find her and her colleagues. 'We, the family of Razan Zaitouneh, the human rights activist, the lawyer, the writer and, above all, the human being, issue this statement more than three months after the deliberate kidnapping which no party has declared responsibility for, or issued any statement or request about, in a clear attempt to buy time and suppress the free voice of our daughter along with her colleagues to force them to stop writing and prevent them from expressing their right to freedom of expression', the family said in a statement issued in April 2014.

Activists and politicians from all over the world have appealed for their release, including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. 'On behalf of the European Parliament I call for their immediate release [...] Her life was threatened by the regime and by the rebel groups for what she was, a courageous young woman who refuses to compromise and continues to fight peacefully for democracy and a free Syria.'

In 2014 the European Parliament joined forces with scores of NGOs, the European public and fellow Sakharov laureates to call for her release with the #FreeRazan campaign. Her family has highlighted the beliefs that she stands for in the European Parliament.

At the time of her Sakharov award in 2011, Razan Zaitouneh was living in hiding, having fled a raid on her house by state security agents. She nevertheless refused to leave Syria.

Zaitouneh used her Sakharov Prize money to save the life of a fellow activist hit by tank fire.