On the evening of 9 November 2013, an armed group raided the offices of Local Development and Small Projects Support Office ( LDSPS) and the Violations Documentation Center ( VDC), and abducted prominent human rights lawyer and co-founder of both LDSPS and VDC, Razan Zaitouneh, and human rights defenders Wael Hamada (her husband), Samira Khalil, and Nazem Hammadi.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is extremely concerned by the reported abduction of Razan Zaitouneh, her husband Wael and two other colleagues Samira and Nazem who were targeted solely due to their peaceful human rights work and in particular their documentation of the massive human rights violations in Syria by all sides. It is not known who abducted them.

The GCHR urges all governments and institutions who have influence in Douma city and its region to ensure the immediate release of Razan Zaitouneh, her husband Wael Hamada, and human rights defenders Samira Khalil and Nazem Hammadi.

Background:

Razan Zaitouneh was born on 29 April 1977. She graduated from law school in 1999 and in 2001 started her work as a lawyer. She has been a member of the team of lawyers for the defense of political prisoners since 2001. In the same year, Zaitouneh was one of the founders of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). In 2005, Zaitouneh established the Syrian Human Rights Information Link (SHRIL), through which she continues to report about human rights violations in Syria. Since 2005, Zaitouneh has also been an active member of the Committee to Support Families of Political Prisoners in Syria.

In 2011, she set up the VDC to systematically document the massive human rights violations from inside Syria. In 2011, she was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize jointly with four other Arabs and also awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award by Reach All Women in War. In 2013, she was granted the International Women of Courage Award.