Al-Shahade, a 28-year-old filmmaker and citizen journalist,
and cameraman Ahmed al-Assam were filming incursions by security forces in the
Homs neighborhood of Safsafa when a shell hit their car and killed
them, Amer Matar, an exiled Syrian journalist and a close friend of al-Shahade,
told CPJ. News reports suggested that security forces targeted the journalists
because they were filming.
Al-Shahade, a prominent filmmaker, was working on a film
commemorating the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising, Matar told CPJ. He
was studying at Syracuse University in New York, but had left in the fall 2011
semester to return to Syria to cover the unrest and train aspiring citizen
journalists.
Al-Shahade’s short films can be found on his YouTube channel. In December
2011, he was interviewed by the U.S.-based broadcast program “Democracy Now.”