Razan Ghazzawi (Arabic: رزان غزاوي‎) is a Syrian lesbian blogger, campaigner and activist.^[1] She has been highly involved in the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising, and has been particularly outspoken on activists’ arrests and the violations of human rights committed by the Bashar al Assad regime.^[2][3] She was called "iconic blogger and leading activist" by The Telegraph.^[4] Jillian York (who has been called "one of the leading scholars on Internet control and censorship"^[5]) wrote that Ghazzawi was "one of [her] heroes."^[1]

Education and Career[link]

Ghazzawi received a diploma in English literature from Damascus University in 2003. She obtained a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Balamand in 2011. She started her career as a Translator and News Compiler for the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She then worked in the Call Center of MTN Syria, but resigned because of she discovered the company was corrupt. After this, she became the Media Officer in the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression in the Arab World.^[6]

Activism and Arrests[link]

She was arrested by Syrian authorities on 30 November 2011 while on her way to attend a conference on press freedom in Jordan. The following week, she was brought to court, charged by authorities with trying to incite sectarian strife, spreading false information and weakening national sentiment, a charge often leveled against those who challenge the Syrian regime, according to rights activists."^[7][8]

Her arrest sparked an online outcry and an international campaign called for her immediate release.^[9] There is a facebook campaign for her release^[10] and Amnesty International has declared her a prisoner of conscience.^[11] Before her arrest, she declared in her blog, "Do you understand, that I was scared to protest, but now I am no longer scared?"^[12] She had also written: "If anything happens to me, know that the regime does not fear the prisoners but those who do not forget them."^[2]

On 19 December 2011, she was reported to have been freed,^[13] and her employer, the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, confirmed this.^[14] However she still faces the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of fifteen years imprisonment.^[3] Ghazzawi is one of the few courageous bloggers in Syria who writes under her real name, even after her arrest.^[9]

Ghazzawi was again arrested on 16 February 2012, during a raid on the offices of the Syrian Center for Freedom of Expression in Damascus where the activist works. Ghazzawi was arrested along with 13 of her colleagues, including the Head of the Center, Mazen Darwish.^[9] She was freed again on 18 February 2012 but she is not allowed to leave the country. Ghazzawi was ordered to report to the police on a daily basis in order to pursue her interrogation.^[15]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Razan Ghazzawi's blog

Razan رزن
—  city  —
Razan
Coordinates: 35°23′12″N 49°02′02″E / 35.38667°N 49.03389°E / 35.38667; 49.03389Coordinates: 35°23′12″N 49°02′02″E / 35.38667°N 49.03389°E / 35.38667; 49.03389
Country	Iran
Province	Hamadan
County	Razan
Bakhsh	Central
Population (2006)
• Total	11,390
Time zone	IRST (UTC+3:30)
• Summer (DST)	IRDT (UTC+4:30)

Razan^[1] (Persian: رزن‎) is a city in and capital of Razan County, Hamadan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 11,390, in 2,871 families.^[2]

References[link]

v t e Hamadan Province Capital Hamadan Counties and Cities Asadabad County Asadabad Bahar County Bahar Lalejin Mohajeran Salehabad Famenin County Famenin Hamadan County Hamadan Juraqan Maryanaj Qahavand Kabudarahang County Kabudarahang Gol Tappeh Shirin Su Malayer County Malayer Azandarian Jowkar Samen Zangeneh Nahavand County Nahavand Barzul Firuzan Giyan Razan County Razan Damaq Qorveh-e Darjazin Tuyserkan County Tuyserkan Farasfaj Sarkan Sights Ganjnameh Shrine of Habakkuk, Toyserkan Hamedan Stone Lion Ali Sadr Cave Hamedan Museum of Natural History Noshijan fire temple,Malayer Shrine of Esther and Mordechai, Hamedan Baba Taher Mausleum, Hamedan Avicenna mausoleum, Hamedan Emamzadeh Yahya,Hamedan Alvand ski resort Pirsolayman lagoon Median capital of Hegmataneh, Hamedan Ecbatan dam Geyan lagoon Baba-pireh shrine Ecbatana

This Hamadan province location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Hala Basha-Gorani ^[1] (Arabic : هالة غوراني) (born 1 March 1970), is an American anchor/correspondent for CNN International based in the network's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. She anchors CNN International's 6 p.m. CET International Desk from CNN Center. Gorani previously co-hosted Your World Today with Jim Clancy until February 2009, when she left the program to anchor her own show.

Biography[link]

Gorani was born in Seattle, Washington, United States, to Syrian parents from Aleppo, but was mainly raised in Paris, France. She has also lived in Algeria. Her name "Hala" is a common Arabic name which means "halo". She earned a Bachelor of Science in economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and graduated from the Institut d'études politiques (better known as Sciences Po) in Paris in 1995.^[2]

Career[link]

She began her career as a reporter for La Voix du Nord and Agence France-Presse before joining France 3 in 1994. After a stint at Bloomberg Television in London, she joined CNN in 1998. She has since reported from every country in the Middle East, and covered the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war in the summer of 2006 from Lebanon, which earned CNN an Edward R. Murrow Award.^[3] In 2002 and in 2007, she led CNN's coverage of the respective French presidential elections.^[3]

Among the people interviewed by Gorani were Abdullah Öcalan, Tony Blair, Amr Moussa, Rafik Hariri, Saeb Erakat, Nouri al-Maliki, Ehud Barak, and Bernard Kouchner.^[4] Gorani avoids discussing her political and religious views, citing the need for professional neutrality.^[1]

Personal life[link]

She speaks English, French and Arabic. She considers Paris her home, which is also where her mother resides.^[5] Gorani is based in Atlanta, US.^[2]

French novelist Yann Moix dedicated his first novel "Jubilations Vers le Ciel" to Gorani in 1996.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official profile at CNN.com
• Twitter
• Hala Gorani's Inside the Middle East Diary, live from Egypt, January 31, 2007
• Interview with Hala Gorani (French) 2010
• Interview with Gorani June 2008

Jillian York
York speaking at the 2011 Personal Democracy Forum (photo by Personal Democracy)
Born	(1982-05-18) May 18, 1982 (age 30)[1]
Nationality	American
Occupation	Free-expression activist, journalist and travel writer
Website
jilliancyork.com

Jillian C. York (born May 18, 1982)^[1] is an American free-expression activist, journalist and travel writer.

She is the Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).^[2]

Career[link]

In 2006, York authored Morocco – Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culturea, a travel book on Morocco.^[3]

In 2008, she joined the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace, where she worked on the OpenNet Initiative, a joint project whose goal is to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations, and Herdict, and conducted research on distributed denial-of-service attacks.^[4] In 2011, she moved to the EFF, where she is the director of international freedom of expression.

York has been called "one of the leading scholars on Internet control and censorship"^[5] and a specialist on free expression and social media in the Arab world.^[6] Her research^[7] on the role of social media in the Arab Spring has been widely cited.^[8] In June 2011, Foreign Policy named her one of the top-100 intellectuals discussing foreign policy on Twitter.^[9]

York's writing on free expression has also been published in The Guardian,^[10] Bloomberg^[11] and Foreign Policy.^[12]

She is a regular columnist for Al Jazeera English^[13] and writes for Global Voices Online,^[14] where she is also on its board of directors as of 2011.^[15] She also co-founded Talk Morocco, which won the 2010 Deutsche Welle Best of Blogs Award for Best English-language blog.^[16]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Computer security portal
	Morocco portal

• List of American print journalists
• List of Harvard University people
• List of non-fiction writers

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (February 2012)

External links[link]

• jilliancyork.com, York's official website
• talkmorocco.net, Talk Morocco (blog) website
• [2]