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Ferzat, who had become increasingly critical of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, found bleeding at side of Damascus road Syrian security forces have beaten up a prominent Syrian political cartoonist and left him bleeding on the side of a road, in the latest episode of a campaign to quash dissent against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Ali Ferzat, 60, is one of Syria’s most famous cultural figures, and his drawings and cartoons have pushed at the boundaries of freedom of expression in Syria. Working from a gallery in central Damascus, Ferzat has long criticised the bureaucracy and corruption of the regime and since March has turned to depicting the uprising. In the early hours of Thursday, masked men seized Ferzat on a Damascus street and beat him up before dumping him, bleeding, on the capital’s Airport Road where he was found by passersby, activists said. Ferzat had become increasingly critical of the regime and its brutal crackdown. He recently appeared on al-Arabiya television and his drawings were avidly followed by Syrians looking for some light relief. In a recent cartoon he critiqued the regime’s offers of reforms, with a picture of an official with rosebuds in his speech bubble – and a coiled turd in his head. Another cartoon showed Assad hurriedly painting railway tracks to escape from a fast-approaching train. Assad has shrugged off international condemnation and continues to use security forces and thugs to kill and arrest opponents to his rule. At least 2,200 people have been killed since mid-March, according to the UN. Fame has in the past offered a measure of protection from the full force of the regime, allowing outspoken cultural figures to get away with more criticism than others. But in recent weeks, a string of artists, writers and actors have been arrested. On 13 July the actor May Skaf was among a group of public figures arrested after a demonstration in the Damascus area of Midan. They were later released. “Ferzat’s arrest is part of an intimidation campaign by security forces who have increasing leeway,” Ammar Abdulhamid, a US-based dissident and son of the actor Mona Wasif said. “At this stage fame may be more of a danger than a protection because the regime does not want any prominent figure to come to the fore and provide a public face for the revolution.” Ferzat was born in the western city of Hama, the scarred city where a tank assault on the eve of Ramadan to bring the city back under government control caused widespread outrage. A graduate of Damascus University’s faculty of fine arts, his initial work in the 1970s appeared in state-run newspapers but by 1980 his cartoons were being published in the French newspaper Le Monde, bringing him international recognition, exhibitions and prizes. In a 2001 interview with the Guardian , Ferzat recalled that before becoming president Assad visited one of his exhibitions and told him that some of the cartoons that had been banned in Syria should have been published. He was later granted permission to publish al-Domar (Lamplighter), a satirical paper which ran from the end of 2000 until 2003, when he closed it under pressure. Nour Ali is the pseudonym for a journalist based in Damascus Syria Newspapers Journalist safety Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Bashar Al-Assad Nour Ali guardian.co.uk