She was one of the most recognisable faces of the 2011 uprising against the Syrian government, but Fadwa Suleiman paid a high price for standing up for what she believed in.
Already a well-known film and television actress in Syria, Ms Suleiman emerged as one of the leading figures of the rebellion, along with Syrian national soccer star Abdel Basset Sarout.
More than 300,000 people have now been killed in the conflict, and millions more displaced.
Fellow Syrian activist Mazen Alhummada, who now lives in the Netherlands, says she refused to stay silent in the face of injustice.
And she wasn't afraid to make sacrifices.
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"Fadwa is one of the brilliant Syrian women who have given us a beautiful example of the Syrian revolution even though she was somewhat considered part of the Assad regime, but she rebelled against this regime after she saw her people demanding their freedom and dignity, joining them and the revolution, even leaving behind her popularity."
Born in Damascus, Ms Suleiman belonged to the same minority Alawite sect as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Following her involvement with the resistance, she was disowned by her family and hunted down by state security forces, forcing her to flee her homeland in 2012.
She later said she wanted to counter the government's attempts to demonise the protesters by portraying them as radical Islamists, or as mouthpieces for foreign powers.
Theatre director Delphine de Boutray says her friend wanted to make her country a better place.
"She was not fooled by what was happening in the revolution. What I mean is, on one hand, all the questions that the Syrians posed, one has a feeling that no one wants freedom for the Syrians - the freedom that they demanded, that she and all the others fought for - no-one wants it."
Settling in France after being granted asylum, Ms Suleiman continued criticising the Syrian government and writing poetry.
Last Thursday she died after a battle with cancer.
In a Facebook post, her brother-in-law wrote that she had "left this ugly world".
Singer Racha Rizk, now living in France after leaving Syria, says Ms Suleiman embodied many of the qualities the Syrian regime wanted to repress.
"She became an icon because she's a woman, first, an artist, second. And she's, she doesn't represent the stereotype that the regime wants to give to the revolution - that it's a revolution of jihadism and extremism."
Friends, activists and sympathisers, many from Paris' Syrian community, joined her sisters and partner at her funeral in a Paris suburb.
Her sister Sanaa sang a tribute to Fadwa.
"Syria is for us, it is not for the house of Assad," she sang.
"Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad."
