Rasha Chorbaji

Rasha Sharbaji, also Shurbaji, Chorbaji, is a Syrian mother who was arrested together with her children when she went to get a passport, as a means of putting pressure on her husband. Sharbaji's husband died in 2014 while attempting to migrate to Europe.

In 2016, Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., named Sharbaji one of twenty women political prisoners in the Free the 20 campaign.

Life

Born in 1982, Sharbaji is from Darayya, a suburb of Damascus in Rif Dimashq Governorate.

On May 22, 2014, when Sharbaji went to the immigration and passport center in Damascus to get a passport, she was arrested with her children, because her husband opposed the government during the revolution. The Syrian police took Sharbaji to the political security branch in Damascus. Then they took Sharbaji to the Air Force Intelligence prison at al-Mezze military airport in Damascus.

Sharbaji's husband died in October 2014. He drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to migrate to Europe.