#freebassel : The cost of loving free culture (en)

Barbara Rühling, Melanie Dulong de Rosnay Bassel Khartabil, loved and celebrated Internet volunteer was detained in Syria on March 15, 2012. His name was deleted from the Adra Prison’s register, where he was detained, on 3 October 2015, and there has been no information about his current status or whereabouts since. Seeing Bassel paying a high price for his love and participation in free culture, many of his friends and fellow free culture activists have reflected on their own fates, actions, and choices. As part of the #freebassel campaign, 44 activists, artists, designers, developers, researchers, and writers involved with free knowledge movements wrote and compiled more than 50 original contributions in the book "Cost of Freedom". The contributions include paintings, poems, personal reflections, critical observations, polemical pieces, and theoretical treatises. Many contributions by Bassel's friends and family, including his wife Noura Safadi, create a collective memory of Bassel and urge for his immediate release to his normal life and freedom. Other contributions by free culture advocates such as Lorna Campbell, Lawrence Lessig, and Jon Phillips offer personal reflections about the experience of working within free culture.