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A for a pro-regime outlet has gone into hiding and fears being arrested after repeatedly criticising corruption in the country, according to reports.

The crackdown against Waqqaf comes after he pointed out thatÌýSyrian president Bashar Al-Assad hostedÌýan actor while protests over a drop in living standards were ongoing in Suweida.

Kenan Waqqaf, a journalist who used to work forÌýthe state-run daily Al-Wehda , released a video in which he saidÌýthat "heavily armed security forces" hadÌýsurrounded his house in the city of Tartous with the intentionÌýto arrest him.

Waqqaf said he was not at home during the raid and .

"They are after me. I am under threat of being killed,"ÌýWaqqaf said in the video, which widely shared by other SyrianÌýjournalists on social media.Ìý

A |n journalist Kinan Waqqaf released a video on storming his apartment in Tartus by forces and Mukhabarat to arrest him. The video is a "testament to take care of his children". He criticized the latest decisions of Assad administration on .

— Mohamed Al Neser (النسر) (@M_Alneser)

Waqqaf lives in Tartous, an area that has been generally loyal to the regime throughout the course of the war.Ìý

However, the desperate economic situation has sparked discontent even among Assad's traditional support base. Protests in Suweida - which has been under nominal regime control throughout the war -Ìýhave been sparked by the suppression of thousands of rationÌýcards, which allowÌýfamilies to purchase staple foods at a subsidised rate.

The journalist was previously arrested twice in 2020 and 2021, after sharing social media posts criticisingÌýthe governmentÌýand for his work investigating corruption cases.

"By the time you read this post I would have been detained,"Ìýhe on his Facebook page in March 2021, afterÌýbeing summoned by the Syrian cybercrime police in Damascus after publishing a report in which he accused the governor of Latakia province and his son of kidnapping a man for ransom.

Syria regime areas remainÌýone of the most difficult places for journalists to report with no tolerance for free media.

Citizen journalists and reporters have been detained and killed throughout the war.

All parties to the ongoing civil conflict, which has already lasted more than ten years, have suppressed press freedom and arbitrarily detained journalists.

In regime-controlledÌýareas, the press is tightly monitored by state security services.