Who’s who: Razan Zaitouneh - The Syrian Observer

In BriefRazan Zaitouneh is a Syrian writer and human rights lawyer who has dedicated her entire life to defending human rights and representing prisoners of conscience. She co-founded the widely respected revolutionary umbrella the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), and won several prominent awards. She currently lives in the Damascus countryside, helping people of the Eastern Ghouta to survive and resist the continuous shelling from President Assad’s forces on the towns and villages there.BackgroundRazan Zaitouneh was born in 1977, graduated from law school in 1999, and began her career as a lawyer specializing in the defense of political prisoners. In the 2000s, Zaitouneh joined the first human rights group to be established after Bashar al-Assad assumed power in July 2000, the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS,) headed then by the renowned lawyer Haitham al-Maleh. She played a key role in the group, and was the Association dynamo, as the youngest of the members.In 2003, Zait...