Bassel Khartabil (; 22 May 1981 – 3 October 2015), also known as Bassel Safadi (), was a Palestinian-Syrian
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
software developer. He was
detained without trial by the Syrian government in 2012
and was
secretly executed in 2015. Human rights organizations say that he was detained for his activities in support of
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...
,
and the
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered his detention to have been
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
.
Khartabil was born in
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, and was raised in Syria, where he specialized in open source software development. He was
chief technology officer (CTO) and co-founder of collaborative research company Aiki Lab
and was CTO of Al-Aous,
a publishing and research institution dedicated to archaeological sciences and arts in Syria. He served as project lead and public affiliate for
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Syria,
and contributed to
Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
,
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
, and
Openclipart
Openclipart, also called Open Clip Art Library, is an online media repository of free-content vector clip art. The project hosts over 160,000 free graphics and has billed itself as "the largest community of artists making the best free original ...
. He is credited with "opening up the Internet in Syria and vastly extending online access and knowledge to the Syrian people."
His last work included an open, 3D virtual reconstruction
of the ancient city of
Palmyra
Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...
in Syria,
with real time visualization using the web programming framework
Aiki Framework. This was later created and displayed in his honor.
In 2018, the Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellowship was announced in Khartabil's memory. The fellowship awards $50,000 and additional support to individuals developing open culture in their communities. The fellowship was created by Creative Commons, Fabricatorz Foundation,
Jimmy Wales Foundation, Mozilla,
#NEWPALMYRA, and
Wikimedia
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, the eighth most visited website ...
.
Personal life
Khartabil was arrested a few days before his marriage contract to
Noura Ghazi, a lawyer and human rights activist, was to be signed. The contract was finalized later that year, while Khartabil was in prison. The couple first met in
Douma in April 2011 after coming back from a demonstration.
On Valentine's Day 2015, Ghazi made public a love letter she wrote to Khartabil, where she reflects on what has taken place in Syria in the time he had been imprisoned:
His father was a scholar who wrote about
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
and Bassel himself was an
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
Awards
For its 2012 list of Top Global Thinkers, ''
Foreign Policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
'' named Khartabil together with
Rima Dali as #19 for "insisting, against all odds, on a peaceful Syrian revolution."
On 21 March 2013, Khartabil was awarded
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression. It produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association wit ...
's Digital Freedom Award. Although still detained at the time in
Adra Prison
Adra Prison () was a prison in Syria, on the northeast outskirts of Damascus. Political prisoners are held in the prison, along with a mixture of civil prisoners such as traffic offenders, murderers, and drug dealers. In 2014, the prison held more ...
, Khartabil was able to communicate his gratitude through
Dana Trometer and Jon Phillips receiving the award on his behalf, wherein he paid "respect to all the victims of the struggle for freedom of speech, and, especially for those non-violent youths who refused to carry arms and deserve all the credit for this award."
Life and work
Khartabil was
chief technology officer (CTO) and co-founder of collaborative research company Aiki Lab,
which produced the web programming framework
Aiki Framework. This was used to let multiple people collaborate on building other projects such as the sites for Openclipart and the Open Font Library. He also contributed to the
Fabricatorz project and the
Sharism movement.
He also served as the CTO of Al-Aous,
a publishing and research institution dedicated to archaeological sciences and arts in Syria. His last works included an open, 3D virtual reconstruction
of the ancient city of
Palmyra
Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...
,
with real time visualization of the models.
An international community came together to contribute to the Palmyra project.
He was the country project lead and public affiliate for
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Syria,
and contributed to
Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
and
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
.
He is credited with opening up the Internet in Syria and working to improve access to knowledge across the country.
It is believed that this work is what led to his later improsonment.
Imprisonment
On 15 March 2012, Khartabil was detained amid arrests in the
Mazzeh district of Damascus by
Military Security Branch 215.
That day marked the one-year anniversary of the
Syrian uprising, with pro- and anti-government protesters demonstrating in Damascus and elsewhere in the country.
Khartabil was interrogated and allegedly tortured for five days by Military Branch 215. One week after his arrest, security forces reportedly took him to his home where they confiscated his computers and his files. He was then transferred to the Interrogation Division Branch 248 and detained there
incommunicado for 9 months. On 9 December 2012, Khartabil was brought before a military prosecutor who charged him with "spying for an enemy State" under Articles 272 and 274 of the Syrian Criminal Code. Khartabil was then sent to the Adra Prison in Damascus.
On 12 December 2013, a request for written answer on the question of Khartabil's imprisonment was raised before the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
to the Commission (Vice-President/High Representative), stating that "his voluntary work, always non-violent in nature, was greatly valued by Syrians of all backgrounds, and it is strongly suspected that his arrest was part of an effort to restrict access to online communities and discourses and stifle free expression in Syria."
On 18 March 2014, the written answer from High Representative/Vice-President
Catherine Ashton
Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (born 20 March 1956) is a Labour Party (UK), British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of th ...
was published, stating that "The HR/VP deplores the ongoing imprisonment of Bassel Safadi Khartabil, shares the concerns at his situation and follows it very closely."
On 21 April 2015, the
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) adopted an opinion on Khartabil's case, calling his detention "
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
" and asking for his immediate release.
The WGAD concluded that Kharbatil's detention violated Articles 9, 14 and 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom ...
(ICCPR), which Syria ratified in 1969.
Prison paintings
While Khartabil was in prison he
made paintings, four of which were smuggled out.
File:Deformity-Bassel-6-17-15.jpg, June 17, 2015, Damascus Central Jail. "An attempt to draw a stereotype. This is the stereotype I have in mind for the deformed souls, I have to deal with every day at jail. There are a lot of them."
File:Resurrection-Bassel-7-10-15.jpg, July 10, 2015, Damascus Central Jail. "From time to time I resurrect old black and white dreams from my childhood memories."
File:Uncertain-Dream-Bassel-6-15-15.jpg, June 15, 2015, Damascus Central Jail "What is this dream I see every night? A web? Black lines? A tunnel? Or some memories from my childhood?
File:Uneasiness-Bassel-7-11-15.jpg, July 11, 2015, Damascus Central Jail "an uneasy or anxious feeling..."
#FREEBASSEL campaign
After his detention became widely known in early July 2012, a global campaign was launched calling for his immediate release. Notable Internet companies like Mozilla, Wikipedia, Global Voices, EFF and Creative Commons wrote letters to the Syrian government urging his immediate release. Notable individuals including
Lawrence Lessig
Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...
,
Joi Ito
is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the president of Chiba Institute of Technology. He is on the Board of Directors for the Gelephu Mindfulness City in Bhutan where he is also the Chairman of the Gelephu Investment Developm ...
,
Mitchell Baker,
Jillian York, Mohamed Nanabhay and Barry Threw wrote public letters of support.
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
, Framablog, and
Hacker News
Hacker News (HN) is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by the investment fund and startup incubator Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one' ...
wrote about the effort.
In October 2012,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
released a document with information suggesting that Khartabil has been ill-treated and even tortured. On 23 October, the Taiwan chapter of Amnesty International led a letter-writing event at Insomnia Cafe to raise awareness about Khartabil in
Taipei, Taiwan
, nickname = The City of Azaleas
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth
, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Country ...
. On 26 November, he was named one of the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy for his resistance.
In December, he was moved to a military prison to await a military trial. In response, a fasting campaign was launched to raise awareness about Khartabil's deteriorating incarceration situation. On 25 January 2013, reports circulated about the pending trial and fears of his execution. On 15 March the #FREEBASSEL project organized a #FREEBASSELDAY campaign with Creative Commons, Mozilla, and other community leaders, leading to public artworks, meetups, press, and videos.

On 22 May, commemorating Khartabil's 32nd birthday—the second time he spent a birthday in prison as well as the 799th day of the
Syrian conflict—the Index on Censorship, Creative Commons, and the #FREEBASSEL campaign launched Project Sunlight, to uncover more information about Khartabil's condition and location. His mother wrote, "I just want him free, I pray for him to be free and I pray for all his friends who believe and work on Bassel's freedom."
At the
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression. It produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association wit ...
Awards, Jon Phillips said of Khartabil,
Locking up Bassel only locks out his personal freedom. By locking up Bassel, his Syrian captors are accidentally locking out themselves from the future...thousands of people that Bassel's work helped, now help him by spreading the message #FREEBASSEL. This is what truly builds Syria and connects it to the global connected future. This award proves that his lock-up, is NOT a lock-out of his digital freedom.
A letter supporting him was sent to the European Union Parliament later that year.
In 2014,
Marc Weidenbaum gathered participants to create 38 musical pieces that might be used as a soundscape for an immersive, completed digital visualization of ancient Palmyra. A second iteration of #FREEBASSELDAY involved a Wikipedia "edit-a-thon", meetups, the creation of a cookbook in Khartabil's honor, and press mentions.
Rebecca MacKinnon
Rebecca MacKinnon (born September 16, 1969) is an American author, researcher, and Internet freedom advocate, and the co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus ...
wrote about Khartabil and the Zone 9 Bloggers in the ''
World Policy Journal
''World Policy Journal'' was the flagship publication of the World Policy Institute, published by Duke University Press. Focusing on international relations, the publication provided left-wing, non-United States-centric perspectives to world issu ...
'', and Wikipedia hosted an editathon for Zone 9 bloggers. On
Human Rights Day
Human Rights Day (HRD) is list of minor secular observances#December, celebrated annually around the world on 10 December every year.
The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December ...
, Global Voices led a campaign to raise awareness about his imprisonment.
In March 2015, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.
It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
hosted a
Wikipedia edit-a-thon for #FREEBASSELDAY. In addition, the Creative Commons Arab World organized a virtual Arabic Wikipedia edit-a-thon to translate and expand pages related to Khartabil and his interests. He was later profiled with the launch
of the EFF's Offline project, "sharing the stories of imprisoned technologists and technology users."
In 2017, the #FREEBASSEL campaign asked supporters to do five public acts in honor of Khartabil, to be posted on social media.
Transfer and execution
On 12 September 2015,
Jaysh al-Islam
Jaysh al-Islam (, meaning ''Army of Islam''), formerly known as Liwa al-Islam (, Brigade of Islam), is a coalition of Islamist rebel units involved in the Syrian Civil War.
The group was part of the Free Syrian Army's Supreme Military Counc ...
shelled and stormed the prison, taking control of two buildings. Until early October Khartabil was still in Adra Prison in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria.
By 3 October, military police took him from his cell in Adra with a 'top secret' sealed order from the Military Field Court. He was transferred to an unknown location.
On 6 October, Amnesty International released a new report on Khartabil's status. A day later,
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
and 30 other human rights organizations issued a letter demanding that Khartabil's whereabouts be disclosed.
On 17 October, Creative Commons Board of Directors approved a resolution calling for Khartabil's release. On 21 October, the
New Palmyra project was launched to carry on his 3D modeling work and other creative uses of data about Palmyra. A day later, the
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...
offered Khartabil a position of research scientist at the
Center for Civic Media
The MIT Center for Civic Media (formerly the Center for Future Civic Media) was a research and practical center that developed and implemented tools that supported political action and "the information needs of iviccommunities". Its mission read i ...
to work with
Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman (born January 4, 1973) is an American media scholar, blogger, and Internet activist. He was the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, and Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT until May 2020 ...
on projects to make Syria's history available to the world. On 9 November, an anthology of essays in Khartabil's honor, entitled ''The Cost of Freedom: A Collective Inquiry'', was released under a Creative Commons
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
license. Two days afterward, unconfirmed rumors surfaced that Khartabil had been sentenced to death.
In August 2017, Khartabil's wife and friends reported they had seen a copy of official documents confirming he had been executed after his transfer from Adra prison in 2015.
Response
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.
It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
and the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...
as well as
Global Voices
Global Voices is an international community of writers, bloggers and digital activists that aim to translate and report on what is being said in citizen media worldwide. It is a non-profit project started at the Berkman Center for Internet and ...
released statements mourning his loss.
Creative Commons announced the creation of the ''Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund'', to support projects in line with his ideas and work throughout his life. On 11 August, the
Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
announced the creation of the ''Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellowship'', organized for an initial period of three years by Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, the Jimmy Wales Foundation, #NEWPALMYRA and other groups. It is aimed at supporting individuals developing free culture, particularly under adverse circumstances.
Works
Models of ancient Palmyra

Starting in 2005, Khartabil began collecting photographs of the ancient architecture and archaeology sites in Palmyra, in the hopes of reconstructing the city online, using 3D models and virtual spaces.
His efforts were put on hold when he was imprisoned, and some of his early work was lost. In 2015 his friends and colleagues launched the New Palmyra Project to bring that dream to life. Since then, many of the most famous structures in Palmyra have been modeled, and some life-size models built of structures that were destroyed in the
Syrian Civil War.
As of 2017, most of the buildings and statues captured by the New Palmyra Project had been completely destroyed by ISIL.
Writing and art
Khartabil wrote hundreds of letters while in prison, including some while he was in a high-security military prison, where writing was prohibited. He also produced paintings and poetry. For a short time, he published some of his writing to an anonymous prison blog
and
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
account, via a friend.
"Jail is not walls, not the executioner and guards. It is the hidden fear in our hearts that makes us prisoners." —Bassel
In his last year in prison, he made a series of at least four paintings that he was able to smuggle out to friends.
See also
*
List of Wikipedia people
This list of Wikipedians includes notable editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia who create and maintain the site, as well as other notable people associated with the project and the larger Wikipedia community.
A
* Ahmad Ali Karim, M ...
References
External links
#FREEBASSELInterview with Bassel about the role of Creative Commons in the Arab world (in Arabic)Podcast Interview with Bassel and Jon Phillips on hackerspaces and making culture in the Arab world
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khartabil, Bassel
1981 births
2015 deaths
Syrian computer programmers
Copyright activists
People from Damascus
People of the Syrian civil war
Palestinian people imprisoned by Syria
Syrian democracy activists
Syrian bloggers
Syrian people of Palestinian descent
Syrian prisoners and detainees
Wikipedia people
People executed by Syria
Mozilla developers
Creative Commons
Executed Syrian people
Syrian dissidents
Political prisoners in Syria
Syrian atheists
Palestinian atheists