FreeBassel Campaign

Bassel Khartabil was a Syrian-Palestinian human rights activist and open-software developer. In 2012 he was detained by the Syrian regime. An international campaign for his release was led by Noura Ghazi, his wife and fellow human rights activist. 

In this video, Noura explains why the campaign was launched.

In 2017, Noura revealed publicly that Bassel had been executed in 2015. The Bassel Khartabil Fellowship is awarded every year in his memory. Bassel was a leading activist for Creative Commons, and their website has a series of articles about the FreeBassel campaign.

Noura went on to found the organisation NoPhotoZone. The name comes from Bassel, who used to call detention centres ‘no-photo zones’. NoPhotoZone promotes legal and human rights awareness on issues of enforced disappearance and detention, and provides direct consultation to the families of detainees and enforced disappearances, regardless of which body has arrested or hidden them.