By John Ballard
I thought I was done with this post days ago but I was wrong.
Twice.
Surely this will put the hoax behind us. But not before a raft of distractions on the part of people with more important matters on their plate.
I don't know why it's shocking that the Internet easily enables this kind of foolishness.
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End of Story:
Turns out to be a blogger in Scotland.
The source blog's apology and explanation here.
Were we used by this person? Yes. Did we believe her? Yes. Did we care what happened to her? Damn yes. And that�s what hurts so much. Did we lose sleep over Amina? Yes. Did we call in every person we ever knew that we thought could help? Yes. Were we scared out of our collective minds? Yes.
We were not intentionally misleading our readers. We try very hard to get our facts straight. We have a very liberal, almost radical editorial slant. We make no claims to being unbiased. We are trying to expand our scope and our readership beyond being advocates for the end of �Don�t Ask Don�t Tell.� There are so many issues out there that effect all of us � gay rights, women�s rights, labor rights, immigration rights, unemployment, the economy, health care choices, the list goes on and on. All of these things impact us as individuals and they impact the LGBT community every day, even if they are not specifically LGBT issues. And yes, the Middle East does impact our lives. It impacts our government�s budget � guns instead of Planned Parenthood � and it impacts those of us who are in the military or have loved ones in the military. I live in Vermont where every life lost tears the fabric of a small town.
Beyond the truth about �Amina,� who apparently is a 35 year-old lesbian living in Edinburgh, Scotland, there is a second story here�..
Details at the link.
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Update:
There may be good reasons that this story is not getting more attention. According to this NY Times report it may have been partly or entirely fabricated.
Those of us who do a lot of bottom-feeding on the Internets can't always validate what we find.
We report. You decide.
After this post about the author of the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus was published, Andy Carvin, an NPR journalist and expert at debunking Internet rumors, pointed out that none of the reports of the arrest of Amina Abdallah Arraf appeared to have been written by journalists who had previously met or interviewed her. A few hours after Mr. Carvin asked his network of followers on Twitter, �has anyone met Amina (Gay Girl In Damascus) in person?� he observed: �It�s just odd that I can�t find anyone who has actually met her in person.�
Although it remains possible that the blog�s author was indeed detained, and has been writing a factual, not fictional, account of recent events in Syria, readers should be aware that the one person who has identified herself � to The Times, the BBC and Al Jazeera � as a personal friend of the blogger, Sandra Bagaria, has now clarified that she has never actually met the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog. Ms. Bagaria told The Lede that she had also never conversed with Ms. Arraf face to face via Skype, but had conducted an online relationship with her since January entirely through Internet communications in writing, including more than 500 e-mails.
H/T Lisa Goldman tweet message More at the link.
Here is a link to Andy Carvin's Twitter messages. That will be the best way to follow this story.
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[Original post (yesterday afternoon) is here:]
Stuff like this gets under my skin in a big way.
Mona Eltahawy's tweet message said this...
Here is the post to which she referred.
I am Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari�s cousin and have the following information to share.
Earlier today, at approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station, near Fares al Khouri Street. She had gone to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by a friend.
Amina told the friend that she would go ahead and they were separated. Amina had, apparently, identified the person she was to meet. However, while her companion was still close by, Amina was seized by three men in their early 20�s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed. Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father.
One of the men then put his hand over Amina�s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad. The witness did not get the tag number. She promptly went and found Amina�s father.
The men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia. Amina�s present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in a jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus.
I have just spoken with her father who is trying to locate her. He has asked me to share this information with her contacts in the hope that someone may know her whereabouts and so that she might be shortly released.
If she is now in custody, he is not worried about being in hiding and says he will do anything he can to free her. If anyone knows anything as to her whereabouts, please contact Abdallah al Omari at his home or please email me, Rania Ismail, at onepathtogod at gmail dot com.
We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her. Amina had previously sent me several texts to post should something happen to her and we will wait until we have definite word before doing so.
Salamat,
Rania O. Ismail
Bright lights and widespread publicity have not stopped savage treatement in all cases, but bright lights, cameras, blogging, email, networking and and social media are often the only weapons available to the defenseless.
Andrew Sullivan posted a poem by this young woman.
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