It may seem like a cushy job to draw cartoon characters all day long, but in some places it’s dangerous.

In Syria last Thursday, popular political cartoonist Ali Ferzat was kidnapped and beaten by four or five men believed to be from President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces, according to The Guardian. Two of Ferzat’s fingers on his left hand and his right arm were broken and his left eye was damaged in the early morning encounter. The attackers specifically told Ferzat “this is just a warning” and that he shouldn’t satirize Syria’s leaders. He was left on the side of a road bloodied and bruised with a bag over his head. According to AFP and Al Jazeera, Syrian police forces are currently searching for the suspects.

Assad has been the subject of increasing international pressure due to his handling of heightened protests against his increasingly oppressive regime. Over 2,500 Syrian citizens have been killed by Assad’s security forces. Ferzat, who once considered Assad a friend and supported his election in 2000, has become an outspoken critic. He has focused his work on covering the uprising that began in earnest this past March.

Ferzat, now 60 years old, began his career in the ’70s and has gained international acclaim, particularly in Germany, France and the Netherlands, as well as throughout the Middle East, where he is considered one of the most famous cultural figures of the Arab world. No stranger to controversy, Ferzat received a death threat from none other than Saddam Hussein, then president of Iraq, because of a 1989 exhibition of his work in Paris. Ferzat has also won recognition for his years as a human rights activist.

Ferzat is not the first Syrian celebrity to get such treatment. In July, the composer Ibrahim al-Qashoush, who wrote a popular song against Assad’s regime, was found dead with his vocal chords forcibly removed. Several other Syrian writers and actors have been arrested in recent weeks. But Ferzat’s international reputation helped increase the reach of the story, which was specifically referenced in a statement from the US State Department criticizing Assad’s regime:

“The regime’s thugs focused their attention on Ferzat’s hands, beating them furiously and breaking one of them, a clear message that he should stop drawing.”

“We demand that the Assad regime immediately stop its campaign of terror through torture, illegal imprisonment and murder.”

Ferzat’s fans as well as the political cartoon community and the larger comics community have come together in support of Ferzat. A Facebook event page called We Are All Ali Ferzat was quickly set up soon after the incident. It currently has over 8,000 supporters. The Washington Post‘s Michael Cavna issued a call to arms to all cartoonists, and one of the responses was the One Thousand Ferzats Tumblr page, a growing collection of political cartoons in support of Ferzat and criticizing Assad. The above image quickly circulated with the belief that it was a self-portrait by Ferzat. That has mostly been dismissed as a rumor but the actual artist is unknown. Below is thought to be Ali Ferzat’s last published cartoon before he was attacked. At this time, it is unknown whether Ferzat will be able to draw again.

While the incident is a shocking and disgusting display of abused power, it’s also a reminder that comics and art are still powerful and inspiring. The editorial cartoons Ferzat has been publishing on his website (naturally, Syria has been banning his work in their state run newspapers for a while now) have been like a rallying cry to the protesters in Syria. And that power is a huge threat to a ruling force facing calls for resignation both domestically and internationally.

So to summarize: comics are hardcore.