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Dear Razan, Samira, Nazim and Wael,

It has been 9 years since you have forcibly disappeared, and not a year has passed that each of you was not present in our minds. We have a lot to tell you, a lot of news and challenges to discuss, successes to share, and ideas we would like to hear your opinions about. Will this letter be enough to express everything we want to share? Of course not, but for your efforts, which are to be reckoned with, and your contributions in establishing, shaping, and launching effective institutions and entities that still operate to this day. We have taken upon ourselves a pledge to carry on with what you have begun.

Why do we address you through this letter? What changed? Can we claim that Syria today is the Syria we all wished for? Unfortunately not! And there is still a long way to go as we work, cooperate and strive to achieve our goals! Here is some of what we would like to share with you: 

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The “Syrian Women for Development” organization, which was founded by the novelist Samar YAZBEK along with Razan’s contributions and efforts to build local partnerships changed its name to Women Now for Development (WND). It was named after the sewing and wool workshop that was founded by Razan, and at that time Samira volunteered to supervise. Razan and Samira, you were partners that stood strong in the face of adversity and were a part of these women’s daily lives. You have not only shared their pain and hopes during the siege, but also their love and perseverance. The organization has evolved from a network of women’s centers to the largest women’s organization in Syria and neighbouring countries. Its team consists of more than 150 women active in various fields including protection, empowerment, and participation. In addition to thousands of women benefiting from the organization’s services, it has also become central to feminist knowledge production and raising the voices of Syrian women on an international level. Today, the organization is a pioneer in the field of women’s access to justice and their participation in the process. Despite forcible disappearance and displacement, the organization celebrated its tenth anniversary this year with a slogan that we all believed in, “One day we will become what we want”.

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The Local Development and Small Projects Support Office (LDSPS) is still operating and has even expanded into an institution that aims to empower and support local communities in different regions of Syria. It seeks to promote the concepts of active citizenship and democratic practice at the level of local communities by supporting local civil society and local governance structures. A strong and resilient civil society is a necessary pillar for achieving stability and establishing a sustainable democratic system in Syria, in which the interests of all Syrians and their aspirations for freedom and dignity are represented through non-discriminatory community participation. LDSPS has indeed succeeded in holding general and direct elections in various areas of their work. We have wished for you to be among us as we heard people express their joy and gratitude after voting for the first time in their lives and feeling the power that comes from choosing your own representatives. Today, the LDSPS team, both in Syria and abroad, includes people from diverse backgrounds that enrich the institution through their vision, skills, work in the community and human rights activism, and academic and research activities.

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As for the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), although the team was severely affected by the crime of your abduction, it served as further motivation for the continuation of work on documenting violations by all actors in Syria. The work of the Center went through several stages and evolved to include the documentation of violations against Syrian refugees in countries of asylum. After the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) resumed its activity in 2016, the VDC rejoined it to complete its journey as one of the most important Syrian documentation projects. Many of the reports and studies that were issued by the VDC are considered important references for the United Nations and various international bodies. By providing a database full of testimonies and evidence, the VDC’s work in documenting violations has become central and the basis to several judicial complaints in which the center is involved in through its Strategic Litigation project. The VDC has developed knowledge and theoretical tools along with the methodologies and technical tools that conform to international standards and can be adopted in other countries going through a similar human rights situation as Syria. Work is currently underway to transfer and share the accumulated knowledge of the VDC to other civil and human rights organizations to accurately document human rights violations in their countries.

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Dearest Razan,

Your encouragement and support to those around you before your forcible disappearance was a source of inspiration to all of us, pushing us to persevere despite the challenges and changes. As a culmination of the documents and information that you and the team in Douma collected on the morning of the chemical massacre on August 21, 2013, today three judicial authorities in France, Sweden, and Germany are looking into the issue of chemical weapons attacks on civilians in Syria. Using the evidence and testimonies of survivors and witnesses that you collected as a cornerstone, these cases continue to largely depend on your great work. We assure you that we did not and will never stop here, as the work of many Syrian and international human rights organizations and initiatives unite to support litigation efforts regarding crimes committed with chemical weapons. The most recent was what began in 2020 as a first step to form the “Association of Chemical Weapons Victims (AVCW)”, which recently culminated in the launch of the Association in August 2022 to include survivors and families of the victims.

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Dearest Samira,

Your office was a destination for the family members of the forcibly disappeared, to express the frustration and the pain of feeling the absence of their loved ones. They found in you a person who can truly understand and listen to them, being forcibly disappeared yourself previously. This was all before you disappeared again for the sake of the same cause. We are working today with victims’ associations and groups as well as Syrian and international organizations to support the efforts in establishing an international mechanism concerned with the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared persons in Syria. Not only that, the observations and the diaries of the siege that you wrote down in your notebook have become a book translated into several languages, entitled “Diaries of the Siege in Douma 2013”, through which the cause of Syrians and their struggle for freedom and dignity is represented. Starting next year in Paris, the Samira AL-KHALIL Association, which was founded in honour of your struggle will award a prize in your name on March 8 every year. This prize will go to a woman whose activism and work aim to put an end to the violations of human rights and freedoms on both an Arab and Mediterranean level.

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Dearest Nazim,

We are today, as you have always been, committed to our cause, deriving our commitment from your perseverance and courage. We are continuously pursuing the perpetrators and dream of a homeland where justice prevails, as you hoped throughout your years of activism as a lawyer, human rights activist, citizen and poet. We are now working with several Syrian and international organizations to prepare and support complaints and cases before many European and international judicial authorities against criminals who committed crimes against Syrians — similar to the criminals whose crimes you helped document. We strive to hold these criminals accountable before the law and have succeeded in doing so with our Syrian and international partners by putting two perpetrators behind bars in Germany. We will make every effort to continue the work they tried to stop you from doing. The “Freedom Raise Magazine” which you helped found, continued to publish your poems on its pages long after your forcible disappearance., Both your and Razan’s absence from its team became an incentive that increased the determination of the rest of them to continue.

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Dearest Wael,

We feel your absence every day, we search for your tenacity and determination; you who did not save time and did not leave a problem without finding a solution to it. Many of the works were born from the womb of the Local Coordination Committees, which you helped establish; Institutions specialized in the development, relief, human rights, media, and advocacy, all of which derive their messages from the vision that you believed in and represented. Until today, we are unable to know your fate, but as always, we spare no effort in seeking to unveil the truth and hold those who kidnapped you accountable. Today, one of those involved in your kidnapping is imprisoned in France while awaiting for the French judiciary to say its word and prosecute him. We had hoped that today we would reach the possibility of holding the perpetrators accountable before a fair, independent, and impartial judiciary in our own beloved country, whose freedom and democracy we all dreamt of, but we know that what is happening now are steps on the long path to justice. We have evidence and testimonies proving the crime of kidnapping you, Razan, Nazem, and Samira. Both us and your families are seeking to find out your whereabouts and free you. This is only one of many steps that we will continue to take until the perpetrators of such violations are punished and we reunite again.

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Until we meet… your friends from Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Erbil, Ankara, Paris, Berlin, Bern, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, Washington, and Ottawa.

9 December 2022.