As director of a Middle East human rights organisation, he advocates for democracy and works on a regional and international level, focusing on the situation in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular.

Tarif was born in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley city of Zahlé, (Arabic: زحلة [1] His family comes from the small mountain town of al-Karaoun on the banks of Lake Litani in the same region.

Having grown up with the sounds, smells and tragedy of continuous conflict all his life, at the age of 13, Wissam Tarif was sent by his family to South America (Paraguay and Argentina), where he joined elder brothers who had been sent ahead of him.

Immersing himself in civil society institutions in Beirut, Tarif started by working for Greenpeace where he began to get a feel for the region's concerns at grass roots level, making his initial appearance on the opinion and analysis pages of well-known and respected Middle East newspapers and magazines, such as An-Nahar.

It received daily monitoring reports from grass roots activists within its countries of focus, in order to ensure that the rest of the world heard about the violations of human rights the authorities preferred to keep silent.