Haytham Manna (al-Awdat) is a Syrian writer; he spent three decades as a human rights activist who helped create and became spokesperson for the Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR). In 2011, during the early stages of the Syrian civil war, he resigned as spokesperson of the ACHR and helped create and become spokesperson of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), one of the two main opposition groups active in the uprising that became a civil war. Manna lives in Paris. In 2015, he was elected co-chairperson of the Syrian Democratic Council, the newly founded umbrella organisation of secular, democratic, non-Islamist opposition in Syria.
While holding the position of spokesperson for the NCC, Manna launched the Law–Citizenship–Rights Movement (QMH) and was elected to the General Federal Assembly of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) as a QMH member. Manna became a co-leader of the SDC assembly, but resigned from the role on 19 March 2016 in protest at the council's announcement of a federal system for Northern Syria, i.e. at the creation of Rojava.