Shadi is a Syrian human rights defender, activist, and survivor of political imprisonment with over two decades of experience in activism, documentation, and civil society leadership. As the co-founder of the Coordination of Damascus and its Countryside for the Peaceful Movement and the political coordinator of Ahrar al-Karama in rural Damascus, Shadi helped lead nonviolent mobilizations during the early years of the Syrian Revolution. His commitment to peaceful change and civil resistance resulted in his arrest and eventual sentencing to 15 years in prison in 2011. After nearly a decade in detention, including at Sednaya Prison, he was released in 2020 and resumed his work with civil society organizations.
He has served as the Program Manager for Documentation and Evidence Collection at ADMSP since 2021. In this role, he has led a specialized team that investigates mass graves, detention centers, and the bureaucratic systems behind enforced disappearances. The team's work included tracing command chains, analyzing administrative records, and building case files to support justice and accountability efforts. His team spearheaded multi-year programs that support survivors and families of the missing by combining policy advocacy with inclusive, trauma-informed practices. They also applied a survivor-centered, gender-sensitive, and intersectional approach to all programming while collaborating with grassroots networks and international institutions to influence policy and legal reforms.
He has a professional background in program and financial management and business development in both the non-profit and private sectors. He holds a master's degree in financial management and has earned multiple certifications in project management, organizational design, and social impact strategy.
His ongoing mission is to bridge survivor experiences, grassroots activism, with transitional justice mechanisms and global accountability frameworks, and to advance meaningful justice, accountability, and institutional reform in Syria.
