Silence continues over abduction of Syrian human rights lawyer
A strange silence has followed the abduction of Syrian human rights activists in Eastern Ghouta.
On Dec. 9, the Syrian human rights lawyer and founder of the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), Razan Zaitouneh, was kidnapped in the city of Duma (Eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus) with three other activists from the VDC: Samira al-Khalil, Wael Hamada and Nazim al-Hamadi. Their case threatens to be the umpteenth forgotten abduction of Syrian activists.
In Eastern Ghouta, what emerges from the reaction of activists and citizen journalists is their reluctance to explicitly accuse the chief suspect and the main local armed faction, the Army of Islam (Jaiysh al-Islam) led by Zahran Alloush. There is a shared belief that the minor brigades present in the area might be responsible for the episode and a common understanding — supported by the Army of Islam — that the importance of Zaitouneh's work has to be belittled.
