Haytham Manna

Haitham Youssef Nasser Al-Awdat (; born 16 May 1951) is a Syrian physician, anthropologist, writer, human rights activist, and politician. He has served as president of the Law–Citizenship–Rights Movement since 2015. Manna is a long-time advocate for human rights and democratic reform in Syria and has played a prominent role in several Syrian opposition movements.

Manna studied medicine at Damascus University before continuing his medical education at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris. He later pursued social sciences at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences under the supervision of anthropologists Marc Augé, Maurice Godelier, and Françoise Héritier. He earned a doctorate in anthropology from Sorbonne Paris North University (formerly Paris 13 University), specializing in psychosomatic therapy, and also completed postgraduate studies in sleep and wakefulness disorders at the University of Montpellier.

Alongside his academic career, Manna became active as a writer and journalist. He contributed to several Arabic-language periodicals, including "Arab Studies , edited the bulletin Revolutionaries , and published medical and political journals during his years at the University of Damascus.

For more than three decades, Manna was active in the international human rights movement. He helped found the Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) and served as its spokesperson. On 19 March 2016, Manna resigned as co-chair of the council after it endorsed the establishment of a federal system in northern Syria, later known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. He stated that his resignation reflected his opposition to federalism imposed without a nationwide political consensus.

Manna has lived in Paris for many years, where he has continued his academic, political, and human rights activities.

Selected works Islam et heresies: L’obsession blasphematoire. Harmattan, 1997. L’Algérie contemporaine – bilan et solutions pour sortir de la crise. Harmattan, 2000. Human Rights in the Arab-Islamic Culture. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, 1996. Citizenship in Arab-Islamic History, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, 1997. "Es kann gelingen – demokratischer Wandel in Syrien" In: Wolfgang Gehrcke/Christiane Reymann (Hg.), Syrien. Wie man einen säkularen Staat zerstört und eine Gesellschaft islamisiert, PapyRossa Verlag 2013. DAECH, L'Etat de la barbarie, Point de Repère, Paris; 2014 Islam and Women's Rights, SIHR, Geneva 2015 Les Parias de Damas, Les Points sur les I, Paris, 2016 Ocalanism, Ideological Construction and Practice, Scandinavian Institute for Human Rights, Geneva, 2017 • Short Universal Encyclopedia of Human Rights, 3 Volumes, 2018, Beirut, Bisan, 2018, La Chute de l'Islam politique, Hachette-Antoine, 2021, Big sticks: The Lie Industry, The Philosophy of Defeat in Hybrid Wars (Russia/Ukraine), SIHR, Germany, 2022, - Atlas of No Violence, • Atlas de la Non-Violence, Hachette-Antoine, 2023,