a Sunni jihadist group convicted and sentenced Syrian artist Khalil Hem-Sourek to death in absentia,

a Sunni jihadist group convicted and sentenced Syrian artist Khalil Hem-Sourek to death in absentia, accusing him of blasphemy and defamation of the "Mother of the Believers" (a term prominently used by Muslims when referring to prophet Mohammad's wives as a sign of respect). The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), elected decapitation as the method of execution through which the death penalty would be carried out against the artist who currently resides in Turkey. After schools had been forced to shut down, Khalil Hem-Sourek has opened an art club for kids in his home city of Al-Raqqa. He also managed to collect some of the children's artwork and had them showcased in an art fair held in the southern Turkey town of Gaziantep. Sourek had studied in the Fine Arts Center and experimented with different techniques, including drawing and pyrography. He's a renowned artist who had several individual and collective art galleries and had won a number of awards.