Razan Zaitouneh (Zeitouneh) is a Syrian human rights lawyer and activist. She graduated in law from Damascus University in 1999 and started defending political prisoners in 2001. In the same year, she co-founded the Syrian Human Rights Association and later established the Syrian Human Rights Information Link to document human rights violations in Syria. Razan Zaitouneh played a crucial role in the Syrian uprising of 2011, co-founding the Local Coordination Committees to organize protests and document the regime’s repression. She also co-founded the Violations Documentation Center in Syria to monitor human rights abuses by all parties involved in the conflict. Razan Zaitouneh has received multiple international awards for her activism, including the Anna Politkovskaya Award (2011) and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (2011). On 9 December 2013, Razan Zaitouneh was abducted in Douma, along with her husband Wael Hamada and colleagues Samira Khalil and Nazem Hammadi. Their kidnappers are suspected to be from the Islamist group Jaysh al-Islam, though the group denied involvement. Their fate remains unknown.