Londoner says missing Syrian blogger stole her identity
Yesterday MSNBC, and consequently some dailykos members posted a story of a Missing Syrian blogger claiming to be a lesbian and being abducted by unknown Syrian forces.
Original story: 'Let her go': Support grows for lesbian blogger's release
Apparently the photos representing this Syrian blogger had been stolen a year ago and are actually those of a British woman from Croatia.
Her publicist said he questioned whether Arraf was a real person.
"She could be a composite. Who knows? She claims online that she was born in the United States, but researchers can find no records of her born in the U.S.," Just told msnbc.com. "Why would you take another woman's identity and claim it as your own? If she is real, Jelena is extremely concerned for her and her family, but her identity has been stolen. This is a serious situation."
If true, it's unfortunate and raises some questions about the Media vetting their sources before breathless reporting. Considering the reality of how horrible the situation is currently in Syria, potential falsehoods can cause some credibility problems for those reporting on it and aid in the Syrian government propaganda.
If this blogger is real, I hope she is safe and is eventually reunited with her family. Regardless I hope that Syrian people does not continue to endure the horrifying events visited upon it by its bloody dictator.
Update from NY Times: After Report of Disappearance, Questions About Syrian-American Blogger
7:17 p.m. Update: 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.
Last month, CNN interviewed Ms. Arraf, but also via e-mail.
The Lede has also discovered that some of the text posted on the Gay Girl in Damascus blog was previously posted online in 2007, in a blog attributed to the same author that was described by her as a mix of fact and fiction.
The text of the post below was revised to underscore that the Gay Girl in Damascus blog is currently the only source of the report that its author has been arrested. Efforts to contact Ms. Arraf’s family have been unsuccessful so far.
Washington Post writs and speculates:
Paula Brooks, an American blogger started communicating with Arraf via e-mail, but was initially suspicious about her identity when she saw the location of Arraf’s I.P. address. It seems to have been routed through Edinburgh in Scotland. Arraf told Brooks she occasionally used proxy Web addresses to protect her safety in Syria, a procedure some Middle East bloggers have turned to under Internet blockades. The two spoke regularly on e-mail and chat.
Arraf told Brooks she had been born in Staunton, Va., but now lived near a mosque in Damascus. Brooks has visited Damascus and Arraf’s descriptions of places in Syria matched Brooks’s memories perfectly. Arraf said she started her blog in part because of Brooks’s encouragement and that she wanted to write the great “Muslim coming out” novel, which would be 95 percent autobiographical 5 percent altered...
and
In the Guardian, Liz Henry at the Composite blog speculates about what the numerous inconsistencies around Arraf could indicate:
1. Amina is as she appears to be, a writer living in Syria, but with a different name and with the names of her family members obscured.
2. Amina is someone else entirely, living in Syria, or elsewhere.
3. Amina is Sandra Bagaria
Brooks suggests another possibility. An email that Arraf sent her in February reads, “On another subject, do you have any opinions regarding graduate schools for history/classics/archaeology in the UK? I'm applying for masters’ programs (at Edinburgh, St Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge, and Kings) with the intention of doing a PhD afterwards (as I can 'commute' from here for the majority of the time) and wonder if it is a good idea (I've been accepted to three and waiting to hear from Oxbridge).”
Since Arraf’s IP address is in Edinburgh in Scotland, she could have been blogging from the University of Edinburgh all along.
MSNBC notes in the end:
Addressing the controversy about Arraf's identity, the owner of the Facebook page wrote, "At the time this site was created, there was no reason to doubt her authenticity of the story ... We think it is possible that the writer of the blog is indeed in custody, in which case, it is important to continue to support her. Many people in Syria are forced to use alternative identities to protect themselves."