| Yara Bader | |
| Birth Name: | Syrian |
| Spouse: | Mazen Darwish |
| Awards: | Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism, Ilaria Alpi award for brave female journalists |
Yara Bader (Arabic: يارا بدر), also known as Yara Badr, is a Syrian journalist and human rights activist. She leads the independent Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (CMFE),[1] founded in Damascus in 2004, along with her husband, prominent lawyer and free speech advocate Mazen Darwish.
Human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch,[2] IFEX[3] and Amnesty International[4] have honored Bader's work on behalf of Syrian detainees despite risks to her safety.[5]
Since 2015, after being forced into exile, Bader and Darwish settled in Berlin. They now travel the world recounting their experiences and demanding justice for the Syrian population.
As a journalist and human rights activist, Bader works on exposing the detention and torture of journalists in war-torn Syria.[6] She has been particularly vocal on activists’ arrests and the violations of human rights committed by the Bashar al-Assad regime.[7]
In February 2012, she was among 14 CMFE staff members, also including director Mazen Darwish and prominent activist Razan Ghazzawi, who were arrested during a raid on their offices by the Syrian Air Force Intelligence services.[8] Some were released a few days later, and, on 10 May 2012, eight more were released, among them Bader, to face trial for "possession of banned publications."[9] Her husband, Mazen Darwish, was released later, in August 2015, along with colleagues Hussein Gharir and Hani al-Zitani.[10] [11]
In 2015, Bader was honoured as a recipient of Human Rights Watch's Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism.[12] In the same year, during World Press Freedom Day, she went to Latvia to receive the UNESCO World Press Freedom Award on behalf of her husband, Mazen Darwish.[13] In 2012, she won the Ilaria Alpi award for brave female journalists.