Inspirational

Journalist

Naji Al-Jarf

Naji Al-Jarf is a Syrian writer, journalist, editor and film director. He was born in 1977 in the city of Salamiyah in the Hama Governorate. He studied philosophy at Tishreen University in Latakia, then worked in the field of journalism and film directing. He married the Syrian poet Bushra Qashmar, and the couple had two daughters.

Naji al-Jarf was known for his opposition to tyranny, the Islamic State, and his joining the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group. He prepared many press reports, and directed a number of documentaries documenting ISIS crimes in Syria, and ISIS assassinated him on December 27, 2015 while he was in the city. Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, and he was buried in Yeşilkent Cemetery in the Turkish city of Gaziantep.

Naji Al-Jarf worked in the press, and founded the Syrian Hinta magazine, which monitors daily observations in the life of the Syrian citizen. Hantawi magazine, directed at young readers between the ages of 9 and 15, and also worked as a director and directed several documentaries for the Al-Jazeera network and channel in Damascus. In his opposition to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, as well as his opposition to the Islamic State (ISIS), he became famous in revolutionary circles and among political activists as “Al-Khal” for guiding and training young people during the days of the revolution. It was secretly established by Syrian activists in 2014 with the aim of exposing and documenting the crimes of the terrorist organization ISIS in Syria. In 2012, Naji al-Jarf was forced to leave Syria with his family to Turkey, where he worked on documenting the atrocities committed by ISIS and the crimes of the Syrian regime.

his works
Naji Al-Jarf has written many articles and press reports for a number of Arab and international newspapers, magazines, news agencies and news networks, and directed a number of documentaries, including:

ISIS in Aleppo: Al-Arabiya channel broadcast the film, and it achieved more than 12 million views. The film was also published on YouTube on December 31, 2015 and achieved more than 75,000 views. The film monitors a number of ISIS crimes in the Syrian city of Aleppo, including the killing of ISIS. For media activists, and workers in the health sector.
his assassination
Before his death, Naji Al-Jarf received a number of threatening messages from unknown persons by phone and through his personal account on the social networking site Facebook. He also survived several failed assassination attempts, one of which was by blowing up his car, where the Turkish police caught a person trying to plant an explosive device under his car. At approximately 13:30 in the evening of December 27, 2015, Naji Al-Jarf was passing in front of a restaurant in the Ugur Plaza area in the center of the Turkish city of Gaziantep and was preparing to enter the restaurant to buy some food for his daughters from the restaurant, when a white car with a masked and armed man passed by With a pistol fitted with a silencer, a bullet was fired from it, wounding Naji al-Jarf in the head. He was subsequently transferred to the Aralek Governmental Hospital, where he died instantly. The Islamic State Organization (ISIS) announced that night on its English-language website its responsibility for the assassination, as it announced as it was announced. The organization is responsible for killing two other journalists of his colleagues by beheading them in early November 2015 in Urfa, Turkey.

Naji Al-Jarf was one of the founders of the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently campaign, and a media spokesperson for the campaign. He contributed to the financing and provision of humanitarian aid to the displaced and forcibly displaced Syrians. He also trained a number of Syrian activists and youth on making documentaries.

Journalist

Peter R. de Vries

Crime Time
Peter R. de Vries started his career in 1978 as an apprentice journalist at De Telegraaf. It was during this period that he investigated his first murder case and developed his love for crime journalism. He was soon named a crime reporter by the newspaper.

His name in that field was definitely established in 1983 by his reporting on the kidnapping of beer magnate Alfred Heineken.

In 1987 he switched to the weekly magazine Aktueel, where he became editor-in-chief. Under his leadership, the magazine was transformed into a crime magazine. Four years later, together with Jaap Jongbloed, he made the first crime program on TV: Crime Time.

De Vries also set up his own press agency that provided crime reports and columns to, among others, Algemeen Dagblad (AD), Panorama and Crime Time. In addition to his book about the Heineken kidnapping, De Vries wrote several other true crime books and a book about his childhood.

Peter R. de Vries – The best hidden camera actions
In 1994 he had a major first by tracking down Heineken kidnapper Frans Meijer in Paraguay, at that time the most wanted criminal in the Netherlands for years.

A year later he got his own program, Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter, which he continued to make for seventeen years. In his program he was one of the first to use the hidden camera.

Saint

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu

Crime Time
Peter R. de Vries started his career in 1978 as an apprentice journalist at De Telegraaf. It was during this period that he investigated his first murder case and developed his love for crime journalism. He was soon named a crime reporter by the newspaper.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Albanian: 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), honoured in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of North Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Skopje for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.

In 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation that had over 4,500 nuns and was active in 133 countries in 2012. The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. It also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children’s and family counselling programmes, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and also profess a fourth vow – to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.

Teresa received a number of honors, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonised on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day. A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticized on various counts, such as for her views on abortion and contraception, and was criticized for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorized biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books. On 6 September 2017, Teresa and St. Francis Xavier were named co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta.

In 1987 he switched to the weekly magazine Aktueel, where he became editor-in-chief. Under his leadership, the magazine was transformed into a crime magazine. Four years later, together with Jaap Jongbloed, he made the first crime program on TV: Crime Time.

De Vries also set up his own press agency that provided crime reports and columns to, among others, Algemeen Dagblad (AD), Panorama and Crime Time. In addition to his book about the Heineken kidnapping, De Vries wrote several other true crime books and a book about his childhood.

Peter R. de Vries – The best hidden camera actions
In 1994 he had a major first by tracking down Heineken kidnapper Frans Meijer in Paraguay, at that time the most wanted criminal in the Netherlands for years.

A year later he got his own program, Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter, which he continued to make for seventeen years. In his program he was one of the first to use the hidden camera.

lawyer

Razan Zaitouneh

Razan Zaitouneh (born 29 April 1977) is a Syrian human rights lawyer and civil society activist. Actively involved in the Syrian uprising, she went into hiding after being accused by the government of being a foreign agent and her husband was arrested. Zaitouneh has documented human rights in Syria for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Zaitouneh was kidnapped on 9 December 2013, most likely by Jaysh al-Islam. Her fate remained unknown. It was suspected that she had been killed.

Razan Zaitouneh (born 29 April 1977) is a Syrian human rights lawyer and civil society activist. Actively involved in the Syrian uprising, she went into hiding after being accused by the government of being a foreign agent and her husband was arrested. Zaitouneh has documented human rights in Syria for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Zaitouneh was kidnapped on 9 December 2013, most likely by Jaysh al-Islam. Her fate remained unknown. It was suspected that she had been killed.

Zaitouneh graduated from law school in Damascus in 1999 and in 2001 started her work as lawyer.

Legal and human rights activism
She has been a member of the team of lawyers for defense of political prisoners since 2001. In the same year, Razan was one of the founders of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). In 2005, Razan Zaitouneh established SHRIL (the Syrian Human Rights Information Link), through which she continues to report about human rights violations in Syria. From 2005 through to her 2013 disappearance, Razan Zaitouneh was an active member of the Committee to Support Families of Political Prisoners in Syria.

Syrian State television aired announcement that Razan Zaitouneh was a foreign agent on 23 March 2011, after which she went into hiding while continuing her legal and human rights work, in order to avoid being arrested.[5]

Zaitouneh founded the Violations Documentation Center in Syria in April 2011 to document human rights violations and abuses in the country by all sides. She also contributed to human rights violations reports circulated by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, of which she was one of the founders.

On 27 October 2011, she was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of thought, jointly with four other Arabs.She was previously awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award by Reach All Women in War.In 2013 Razan Zaitouneh was granted the International Women of Courage Award.

2013 disappearance
Pro-opposition websites reported that on 9 December 2013 Zaitouneh had been 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 December 2015, their whereabouts were still unknown and the identity of the kidnappers uncertain, although it was suspected that the Islamist Salafi rebel group Jaysh al-Islam was responsible.

As of August 2018, Associated Press (AP) was unaware of significant evidence for Zaitouneh’s fate. AP stated clues suggesting that Jaysh al-Islam had detained Zaitouneh and held her in Tawbeh Prison. Jaysh al-Islam denied the claim. One clue was graffiti seen by several witnesses on a prison cell wall stating, “I miss my mother — Razan Zaitouneh, 2016.” Another clue was the use of one of the Violations Documentation Center computers, taken together with Zaitouneh in the December 2013 kidnapping, from a Jaysh al-Islam IP address at Tawbeh Prison. Another opposition activist, Mazen Darwish, stated that Zaitouneh was held by Jaysh al-Islam until early 2017. AP judged it likely that Zaitouneh had been killed.

On 17 February 2020, one of the Syrian intelligence agencies declared that it had discovered a mass grave in al-Ub around the eastern Ghouta dictrict, containing around 70 bodies. One of them appeared to be that of Razan Zaitouneh.[unreliable source?]

As of March 2021, a criminal complaint was filed in France by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, holding Jaish al-Islam responsible for her abduction.

Legal and human rights activism
She has been a member of the team of lawyers for defense of political prisoners since 2001. In the same year, Razan was one of the founders of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). In 2005, Razan Zaitouneh established SHRIL (the Syrian Human Rights Information Link), through which she continues to report about human rights violations in Syria. From 2005 through to her 2013 disappearance, Razan Zaitouneh was an active member of the Committee to Support Families of Political Prisoners in Syria.

Syrian State television aired announcement that Razan Zaitouneh was a foreign agent on 23 March 2011, after which she went into hiding while continuing her legal and human rights work, in order to avoid being arrested.[5]

Zaitouneh founded the Violations Documentation Center in Syria in April 2011 to document human rights violations and abuses in the country by all sides. She also contributed to human rights violations reports circulated by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, of which she was one of the founders.

On 27 October 2011, she was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of thought, jointly with four other Arabs.She was previously awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award by Reach All Women in War.In 2013 Razan Zaitouneh was granted the International Women of Courage Award.

2013 disappearance
Pro-opposition websites reported that on 9 December 2013 Zaitouneh had been 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 December 2015, their whereabouts were still unknown and the identity of the kidnappers uncertain, although it was suspected that the Islamist Salafi rebel group Jaysh al-Islam was responsible.

As of August 2018, Associated Press (AP) was unaware of significant evidence for Zaitouneh’s fate. AP stated clues suggesting that Jaysh al-Islam had detained Zaitouneh and held her in Tawbeh Prison. Jaysh al-Islam denied the claim. One clue was graffiti seen by several witnesses on a prison cell wall stating, “I miss my mother — Razan Zaitouneh, 2016.” Another clue was the use of one of the Violations Documentation Center computers, taken together with Zaitouneh in the December 2013 kidnapping, from a Jaysh al-Islam IP address at Tawbeh Prison. Another opposition activist, Mazen Darwish, stated that Zaitouneh was held by Jaysh al-Islam until early 2017. AP judged it likely that Zaitouneh had been killed.

On 17 February 2020, one of the Syrian intelligence agencies declared that it had discovered a mass grave in al-Ub around the eastern Ghouta dictrict, containing around 70 bodies. One of them appeared to be that of Razan Zaitouneh.[unreliable source?]

As of March 2021, a criminal complaint was filed in France by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, holding Jaish al-Islam responsible for her abduction.

Crime Time
Peter R. de Vries started his career in 1978 as an apprentice journalist at De Telegraaf. It was during this period that he investigated his first murder case and developed his love for crime journalism. He was soon named a crime reporter by the newspaper.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Albanian: 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), honoured in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of North Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Skopje for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.

In 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation that had over 4,500 nuns and was active in 133 countries in 2012. The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. It also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children’s and family counselling programmes, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and also profess a fourth vow – to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.

Teresa received a number of honors, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonised on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day. A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticized on various counts, such as for her views on abortion and contraception, and was criticized for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorized biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books. On 6 September 2017, Teresa and St. Francis Xavier were named co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta.

In 1987 he switched to the weekly magazine Aktueel, where he became editor-in-chief. Under his leadership, the magazine was transformed into a crime magazine. Four years later, together with Jaap Jongbloed, he made the first crime program on TV: Crime Time.

De Vries also set up his own press agency that provided crime reports and columns to, among others, Algemeen Dagblad (AD), Panorama and Crime Time. In addition to his book about the Heineken kidnapping, De Vries wrote several other true crime books and a book about his childhood.

Peter R. de Vries – The best hidden camera actions
In 1994 he had a major first by tracking down Heineken kidnapper Frans Meijer in Paraguay, at that time the most wanted criminal in the Netherlands for years.

A year later he got his own program, Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter, which he continued to make for seventeen years. In his program he was one of the first to use the hidden camera.

Writer and Activist

Professor Omar Aziz

The martyr, writer and activist, Professor Omar Aziz
He is one of the first to write about local councils. Aziz was martyred under torture on Saturday, February 16, 2013 in Adra prison, to which he was transferred three days ago, after being detained for about three months in the basements of Air Force Intelligence in Damascus.
Omar Aziz was born in the city of Damascus, Al-Amarah neighborhood, in the year 1946. He is married and the father of three daughters and one boy.
Omar Aziz, a Syrian economist and intellectual, and the founder of the idea of ​​local councils. He was very active during the revolution.
He was arrested from his home in Damascus on 11-20-2012, by Air Force Intelligence, and taken to Air Force Intelligence prison at the old Mezzeh Airport. He was then transferred to Adra prison on February 12, 2013 and died 4 days later, on February 16, 2013.
According to one of his acquaintances in Adra prison, during his detention he was given his medicines, contrary to the popular version of his death because he was deprived of them, but he was psychologically tortured in a terrifying way.

Syrian actress

May Skaf

May Skaf (April 15, 1969 – July 23, 2018) was a Syrian actress and activist. She began her career in 1991. Skaf acted in many series and movies such as Al-Ababeed in 1997 Maraya in 1998 and Omar in 2012. she was labeled The rebellious artist, The Free artist and Revolution icon.She died in July 2018 in Dourdan from a heart attack.

Early life and career
Skaf was born in Damascus, where she studied French literature at Damascus University. Skaf started to act in many French plays, when in 1991 she got the attention of director Maher Keddo, who chose her for the main role in his film Sahil aljehat (Neigh of direction). She worked with director Abdellatif Abdelhamid who offered her a role in his movie Rise of rain in 1995. Her first role in TV was in A crime in memory in 1992. Skaf became famous from her breakout role in Al-Ababeed (The Anarchy) in 1997. She acted in many other series like Albawasel (The Heroes) in 2000, Bit alelah (House of family) in 2002, Ash-Shatat (The diaspora) in 2003, Ahel algharam (People of love) in 2006. She portrayed the medieval Arab woman Hind bint Utbah in Omar in 2012, and as Tawq asphalt (Asphalt collar) in 2014. Her last role was in Orchedea in 2017. She participated in the Syrian artists association in 2001, but she was suspended in 2015 for not making payments to the association.

She was formerly married , she had one son Judd Alzobbi. Since the beginning of Syrian Revolution 2011, she participated in many protests against Bashar al-Assad. She was arrested and released in August 2011. In 2012 she left Syria secretly for Lebanon then to Jordan, where she immigrated to France with her son in 2013. She accused Syrian police of rape when she was under arrest. The government took possession of her house in Jaramana in late 2014 after she fled the country.

On July 23, 2018, her son watched Skaf die at her bed. Her family doubted the cause of death was due to natural reasons. A couple of days before her death she had traveled to Beirut, which led to speculation that Hezbollah may have had a role in her death. However, the official autopsy concluded that she died from a heart attack. Her maternal cousin Dima Wannous said that she died from a stroke, she also said that she suffered from a great deal of frustration for what happened in Syria.

artist

Fadwa Suleiman

The artist and performer of Syrian voices was born on the seventeenth of May 1970. She was born in the city of Aleppo in Syria. Fadwa studied at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus and graduated from it. She presented us with many diverse works of art, including dramas, dubbing, plays and radio series as well.

Fadwa Suleiman started her artistic career in the nineties when she participated in the play entitled “Safar Barlik”, which was shown in 1994, and then she was a guest of honor in the series “Diary of Abu Antar” in 1996. She was also distinguished by the vocal performance of many cartoon characters, the most important of which are Cartoons “Previous and Later”, “Digital Champions” and many others, and her last artwork was her participation in the vocal performance in the series “Al-Qanas” in 2011.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, the late Syrian star Fadwa Suleiman has been leading the demonstrations against the Syrian regime in a number of villages and cities, especially the city of Homs. That his father, Hafez al-Assad, was the president of Syria and that he had established his rule on discrimination and exploited minorities.

She stated that President Bashar al-Assad had exploited members of the sect to which he belongs and came from and relied on them as a basis for the army, and when she moved to Paris, she joined a demonstration against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and shouted through the microphone: “Shae, betrayal, betrayal. The Syrian regime is betrayed.” In it she says: “One is one, the Syrian people are one.” She also appeared several times in the city of Homs, which witnessed many mass demonstrations, and said: “O Homs, we are with you to death.” She declared that the Assad regime contributed to the failure to spread secularism, as she emphasized that those who die For the sake of the Assad regime, they are dying for a madman in power, as she emphasized that she does not belong to any sect.