Ausama Monajed is a leading Syrian dissident and a member of the Syrian National Council. Monajed was the executive director of the London-based Strategic Research and Communication Center, which released daily reports on the ongoing conflict in Syria documenting events with stories, videos, and on-the-ground images. He also served as the founder and director of Barada TV, a Syrian opposition television network. He has been widely interviewed in global media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,and The Daily Telegraph. Against the backdrop of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, he is a regular contributor and source of news for networks and agencies including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera,Reuters, and AFP. As a student in Syria under the regime of Bashar al-Assad,Monajed was detained and interrogated several times by security forces before fleeing the country in 2005. As a member of the Syrian National Council, Monajed works to unite the diverse elements of the revolution under a single umbrella organization. The goals of the council include providing the opposition with a voice in the international arena and overcoming division along ethnic and religious lines. Monajed currently works as a communication consultant in Europe and the U.S. Monajed earned a postgraduate degree in political communication in the U.K. and an undergraduate degree in economics and management from the University of Damascus in Syria.