girl exposed

Gay Girl in Damascus is a man called Tom
Asher Moses
June 13, 2011 - 9:07AM
Comments 2

Tom Macmaster ... wrote under the pseudonym Amina Arraf.
Amina Arraf, the "Gay Girl in Damascus" who sent the world into a frenzy after she was reportedly kidnapped by Syrian security forces, has been outed as a 40-year-old American man.

A new entry on Sunday in the blog, which for months has claimed to be written by a lesbian Syrian-American living in Damascus, asserted that the entire saga was a hoax.

The post, which came days after an entry saying the blogger had been arrested, was signed by "Tom MacMaster" in Istanbul, Turkey.

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Jelena Lecic ... the Croat living in London said the Gay Girl in Damascus blog was carrying a picture of her.
In it, the author says the narrative was fictional but insists it "created an important voice for issues I feel strongly about."

It says the author never expected so much attention.

It is not the first time a a blog has been exposed as an elaborate fiction. In 2004, the Plain Layne blog, purportedly the diary of a bisexual young woman, was revealed to be written by a man, Odin Soli.


A grab from Gay Girl in Damascus.
Additionally, from 1999 to 2001, Debbie Swanson convinced the world that she was a terminally ill teenager, Kaycee Nicole, who was stricken with leukemia. It was one of the most high profile cases of Munchausen by Internet, a disease where people feign serious illnesses online.

On Tuesday, a blog post on the Gay Girl in Damascus site, supposedly written by Amina Arraf's cousin, said she had been detained in Damascus after weeks on the run. The story unraveled quickly after a woman in Britain said the photos on the Facebook account of the blogger known as Amina were actually of her.

The author of the blog post on Sunday titled it Apology to readers but wrote "I do not believe that I have harmed anyone". There was no listing for MacMaster in Istanbul.


Stolen identity ... a grab from Jelena Lecic's Facebook page.
MacMaster, a 40-year-old American from Georgia, is a Middle East peace activist who has been studying for a masters degree at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is reportedly on vacation in Turkey with his girlfriend.

The Washington Post was able to track MacMaster down before he outed himself on the blog but he initially denied any connection to Arraf, saying if he were the "genius" who pulled it off he would write a book.

MacMaster when posing as Amina had given people postal addresses for Christmas cards which were registered in his name. He and Amina were on the same Yahoo message group about "alternate history" and frequently engaged each other in discussions about the Middle East.

Many biographical details about Amina that were published online also matched MacMaster's own life story. These are detailed in an extensive Washington Post article, which highlights MacMaster's deep knowledge of Syria and long affinity with the Middle East.

In the blog post purportedly by Arraf's cousin, Rania Ismail, it said Arraf was last seen on Monday being bundled into a car by three men in civilian clothes as she was on her way to meet someone at the activist Local Coordination Committees. Ismail said a friend accompanying her was nearby and saw what happened.

A reporter for The Associated Press, who maintained a month-long email correspondence with someone claiming to be Arraf, found the writer seemed very much like a woman in the midst of the violent change gripping Syria. The writer spoke about friends in Damascus, and outlined worries about her father and hopes for the future of her country.

In the emails, the person acknowledged fudging some details of escaping from Syrian security officials to protect herself and her family, and painted a harrowing picture of fleeing her home.

Jelena Lecic, the woman whose photos were linked to Arraf's Facebook profile, said the London woman first learned her likeness was being used when it was linked to an article about Arraf in the Guardian newspaper, her spokesman has said.

The spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lecic, a Croatian woman working as an administrator at the Royal College of Physicians in London, reportedly had her identity stolen about a year ago. MacMaster had been circulating photographs of her to people asking for pictures of Arraf.

On the blog, Arraf was known for frank posts about her sexuality and open criticism of President Bashar al-Assad's autocratic rule.

In February, an American blogger named Paula Brooks began communicating with Arraf via email but became suspicious when her IP address was traced back to Edinburgh in Scotland.

Arraf sent Brooks a photo of herself that matches the photos Lecic claims were taken from her Facebook page.

She told Brooks that her IP traced back to Scotland because she used a proxy to hide her identity. However, an email Arraf sent to Brooks discussing plans to study in Britain led her to suspect Arraf might have been blogging from the University of Edinburgh all along.

Media scoured records for confirmation that Arraf existed and also attempted to confirm biographical information found in her blog, but came up empty. No one, including the US State Department, was able to confirm her arrest.

NPR reporter Andy Carvin said he had spoken to a number of people who claimed to have met or interviewed Arraf but found that nobody had even met her in person or spoken to her on the phone. Even a purported girlfriend in Canada said she had only had a text-based relationship with Arraf.

Arraf's Canadian friend, Sandra Bagaria, who started a campaign to have Arraf released, was last week dismayed at suggestions she may have been deceived or that her Syrian friend might have been using a false identity.

''I don't know. I really can't tell. I would love to tell you I know," she said.

"I just want it to be clarified, and then I will deal with what I should and should not feel. But for now I just want it to be a little more clear."

- with AP

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Comments

2 comments so far
See how the media jumps onto unverified, made up rubbish posing as news? The days of "journalists" actually researching stories are long gone, Signed by Berkel, a bisexual, pot smoking parrot in detention on Xmas island

Shemp | melbourne - June 13, 2011, 9:20AM
This man, Tom, claims he hasn't hurt anyone and says he created this blog for Syria. What a crock, why then did he have dating site profiles up with the photos of jelena? Why did he create a relationship with a woman in Montreal? He wasn't blogging for Syria, he was blogging to live out a lesbian fantasy. He'll be doing an interview soon and I hope the interviewer asks the hard questions and doesn't let him get away with saying "I did it all for Syria".

Juno. - June 13, 2011, 9:30AM


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