“Bassel was detained on March 15, 2012 amid arrests on the one-year
anniversary of the Syrian uprising. He had been missing since October 2015,
when he was removed from the Syrian prison where he was being held. His
wife, Noura, confirmed earlier today in a statement on Facebook that he was
executed by the Syrian government shortly after his disappearance.
Bassel was a leader, advocate, and member of so many open culture
communities it is difficult to do them all justice. In addition to his
contributions to Wikimedia, he was project lead and public affiliate for
Creative Commons Syria, a member of the Global Voices community, a free
software advocate and contributor to Mozilla, and much more. The European
Parliament statement on his detention credited him with “opening up the
Internet in Syria and vastly extending online access and knowledge to the
Syrian people.”” (Wikimedia-L)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassel_Khartabil
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By Joi Ito – http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/4670781482, CC BY 2.0, Link