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Five years, five days of actions for #freebassel5years

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Bassel

Photo of Bassel Khartabil in Seoul, 2010. CC BY 2.0 Joi Ito

Five years ago today, CC Syria lead, free culture advocate, and human rights activist Bassel Khartabil was imprisoned by the Syrian government in Damascus. As a commoner, his work on the New Palmyra project, the CC Arabic Translation, and his pivotal influence on information access in the Middle East is a beacon for all who devote their lives to free culture. In the words of Joi Ito, “The last time that many of us saw Bassel was at the Creative Commons Global Summit in Warsaw in 2011, where he was continuing his work of expanding information and opportunity in his home country and across the Middle East and the world.”

In honor of Khartabil’s influence on the free culture and open source movement, the Free Bassel campaign is encouraging five actions in public support of the movement to #freebassel in protest of his five years of unjust imprisonment.

This week, the campaign released a secret letter Khartabil sent Free Bassel coordinator Jon Phillips in 2014. If you have received a letter from Bassel, the campaign encourages you to share his words publicly and collaborate on the project via Git.

Other contributions include a Soundcloud playlist of nearly fifty songs in support of Bassel and various social media actions.

The full list of campaign actions from Freebassel.org is below. Share #freebassel5years and spread the message:

Posted 15 March 2017

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