17 Facts About Ruqia Hassan

Ruqia Hassan was a member of the activist group known as Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, and wrote frequently under the pen name Nissan Ibrahim.

Ruqia Hassan is thought to be the first identified female citizen journalist executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Ruqia Hassan was born Ruqia Hassan Mohammed in 1985 in Raqqa, Syria.

Ruqia Hassan came from a family of affluent Syrian Kurds, whose village of origin located close to the city of Kobani.

Ruqia Hassan's father was a devout Muslim and businessman who kept several lots and buildings within Raqqa.

Ruqia Hassan graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Aleppo in Aleppo, Syria.

In 2011, Ruqia Hassan became an active and early member of the opposition to the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, after the start of the Syrian Civil War.

Ruqia Hassan remained in the city after the seizure of power by rebels in 2013, and still when the Islamic militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant gained power later that same year.

Ruqia Hassan was mostly known for her informal and personal form of journalism.

Ruqia Hassan was an active member of Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered, an activist group that works to document the violation of human rights caused by ISIL's rise to prominence within the region.

Ruqia Hassan provided updates concerning the city's worsening conditions and frequent airstrikes from the combined coalition and Russian forces.

The founder of RBSS, Abu Mohammed claims that he attempted to dissuade Ruqia Hassan from continuing her posts; encouraging her to switch identities and remove personal photos of herself from her accounts.

On July 21,2015, Ruqia Hassan abruptly stopped posting to social media.

Ruqia Hassan was abducted by ISIL sometime around late-July or August 2015, and it was not known what happened to her from the time of her disappearance to her execution by ISIL sometime in September or October 2015.

Work done by journalists like Ruqia Hassan caused them to be publicly labeled as spies.

Ruqia Hassan's execution was just one example of a larger overall movement to suppress the transmission of the truth about the group's actions by the Syrian and Turkish journalistic communities.

Ruqia Hassan said of her death and ISIL's suppression of dissenters:.