Syria: Mystery surrounds 'Gay Girl in Damascus' blogger abduction
US embassy officials in Syria are urgently seeking to establish further details about Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari – who according to a post on her blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus , was abducted by security forces on Monday evening – as questions emerged over the identity of the blogger.
According to the blog, which has gained a growing following in Syria and further afield since popular protests against the government began in March, Araf was snatched by three armed men on a Damascus street and has not been heard from since.
The update was signed by Rania O Ismail, who said she was Araf's cousin. The blogger, who writes of her life as a lesbian feminist participating in the protests, has said that her mother is American and she is a joint US-Syrian citizen.
Angela Williams from the US embassy in Damascus told the Guardian that US officials had not been able to confirm any of the details in the blog, and had no records of someone of that name living in Damascus. "We and our colleagues in Washington are continuing to attempt to ascertain more information about Ms Araf, including confirmation of her citizenship. We are unable to make a consular representation to the Syrian authorities on Ms Araf's behalf without first determining that she is a US citizen."
Other questions have arisen over the identity of the blog's author. A London woman, Jelena Lecic, issued a statement saying that photographs that had been published and widely circulated as being of Araf were in fact of her. The Guardian removed a picture after it received a complaint from Lecic, replacing it with another image supplied directly to the paper last month by the blog's author. That picture has also been removed following a second complaint from Lecic, pending an investigation.
Emails to an address supplied by Ismail have not met a response and the Guardian has been unable independently to verify Araf's identity or that of her parents, in Syria or the US.
No individual has been identified who can confirm they have met Araf or spoken to her by Skype or telephone.
Activists in Syria frequently take elaborate steps to conceal their identities, often communicating by Skype or secure email rather than meeting face to face and using pseudonyms or multiple identities. At least 750 activists have been killed by security forces since the uprising began. Tal al-Mallouhi, a 20-year-old Palestinian-Syrian blogger from Homs, was sentenced to five years in jail in February, accused of spying for the US. Other bloggers and dissidents have faced similar fates.
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