Razan Zeitouneh

Razan Zaitouneh or Zeitunah () is a Syrian human rights lawyer and activist. She was born 29 April 1977. In March 2013, Zeitouneh received the International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. State Department. In December 2013, Zeitouneh disappeared in Syria.
Early life.
Zaitouneh was part of the Syrian uprising. She documented human rights in Syria for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. After the government accused her of being a foreign agent she went into hiding and her husband was arrested.
Education and career.
Zaitouneh finished law school in 1999. In 2001 started her work as lawyer, and she became a member of the team of lawyers for defense of political prisoners. In the same year, she was one of the founders of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). In 2005, Zaitouneh started SHRIL (the Syrian Human Rights Information Link), to report about human rights problems in Syria. In 2005, Zaitouneh became a member of the Committee to Support Families of Political Prisoners in Syria.
Recognitions.
On 27 October 2011, Zaitouneh received the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, together with four other Arabs. In 2011, she also received the Anna Politkovskaya Award. In 2013, Zaitouneh received the International Women of Courage Award.
In December 2013, pro-opposition websites said that Zaitouneh was 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 4 February 2014, their location was still unknown. The identity of the kidnappers was not certain, although they were suspected to be from the Islamist rebel group the Army of Islam.