Ferzat Jarban Dead: Cameraman Is First Reported Journalist Killed In Syria

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that cameraman Ferzat Jarban was the first journalist killed in Syria since the organization started tracking journalists' deaths in 1992. He was found dead on Sunday.

Jarban was last seen being arrested on Saturday for filming anti-government protests in Homs governorates' city of al-Qasir, Syria.

His body was found in town on the side of a road the next morning. His eyes had been reportedly gouged out and CPJ described his body as "severely mutilated."

CPJ has been tracking what it described as "the arrest and disappearance of several journalists in Syria over the past several months." Syrian civilians have been engaged in an increasingly violent uprising for eight months against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Associated Press reported that "until fairly recently in the uprising, most of the violence came as security forces fired on mainly peaceful protests." The United Nations said that the death toll from the Syrian uprising had reached 3,500 in early November.