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"Bassel was detained on March 15, 2012 amid arrests on the one-yearanniversary of the Syrian uprising. He had been missing since October 2015,when he was removed from the Syrian prison where he was being held. Hiswife, Noura, confirmed earlier today in a statement on Facebook that he wasexecuted by the Syrian government shortly after his disappearance.Bassel was a leader, advocate, and member of so many open culturecommunities it is difficult to do them all justice. In addition to hiscontributions to Wikimedia, he was project lead and public affiliate forCreative Commons Syria, a member of the Global Voices community, a freesoftware advocate and contributor to Mozilla, and much more. The EuropeanParliament statement on his detention credited him with “opening up theInternet in Syria and vastly extending online access and knowledge to theSyrian people."" (Wikimedia-L)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassel_KhartabilBy Joi Ito - http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/4670781482, CC BY 2.0, Link