Syrian blog poster apologizes for hoax, anger remains

LONDON - A 40-year-old American man living in Scotland saidMonday he's sorry for posing as a Syrian lesbian blogger who offeredvivid accounts of life amid revolt and repression in Damascus, ahoax that has exposed the difficulty of sifting truth from fictiononline.

Tom MacMaster said he created the fictional persona of AminaArraf and the "Gay Girl in Damascus" blog to draw attention toconditions in a Middle East convulsed by change.

"I never meant to hurt anyone," the Edinburgh University gradstudent wrote Monday in a long apology on the blog. The universitysaid it had suspended MacMaster's computer privileges while itinvestigated whether he had breached its rules.

Gay rights activists and bloggers say MacMaster has endangeredreal people who are trying to tell their stories in authoritariansocieties.

"He completely stole the limelight of real LGBT bloggers andactivists in the Middle East and diverted it in a negative way,"said Dan Littauer of the website Gay Middle East.

Daniel Nassar, the pseudonym of a Syrian man affiliated with GayMiddle East, said MacMaster had put all gay Syrians in danger.

"If I was living in a country where I could sue this personbecause he has damaged me and damaged my cause ... then I would," hesaid.

The blogs about life as a Syrian-American lesbian grabbedinternational attention soon after they began in February. Alongsidevideo clips and erotic poems, the writer wrote about a childhood inVirginia, daily life as a gay woman in Damascus, the growing protestmovement and hopes for a future Syria freed from "dictators and ruleby strong men."

For readers hungry for news of the uprisings sweeping the Arabworld, it was gold dust - a gripping, firsthand account of a countryfrom which most foreign journalists are excluded.

A reporter for The Associated Press, who maintained a monthlongemail correspondence with someone claiming to be Arraf, found thepersona persuasive. The writer spoke about friends in Damascus, andoutlined worries about her father and hopes for the future of hercountry, and seemed very much like a woman in the midst of theviolent change gripping Syria.

On June 6, a post on the Arraf site, ostensibly by a cousin, saidshe'd been abducted by armed men in a Damascus street. The Interneterupted with alarm. A "Free Amina Arraf" Facebook page drew 14,000supporters.

The U.S. State Department said it was making inquiries toestablish her identity.

But other bloggers began to go public with their growing doubtsabout Arraf's authenticity.

Some thought an April 26 post describing how two plainclothessecurity agents came to her home to detain her and were persuaded toleaving by her father sounded extremely implausible. Syria'shardline security services are not known as being easily dissuaded.

Reporters in Virginia, where Arraf claimed to have grown up,could find no trace of her or her family.

Journalists could find no one who had ever met her - not evenSandra Bagaria, a Montreal woman who was having an onlinerelationship with her and had exchanged hundreds of emails with"Amina."

Online sleuths - including Andy Carvin of National Public Radioand blogger Liz Henry - found that an IP address used by Arraf wasbased at Edinburgh University and uncovered links between theblogger and an address in Stone Mountain, Georgia owned byMacMaster, a married American man currently studying for a master'sdegree at the University of Edinburgh.

Then a woman in Britain, Jelena Lecic, came forward to say thephotos of "Amina" on the blogger's Facebook page were actually ofher. She had been unaware of the theft until she saw her own pictureillustrating a British newspaper article about the blogger.

Faced with the mounting evidence, MacMaster first denied it, thenconfessed, posting an "apology to readers" Sunday on Amina's blog.

MacMaster's wife, Britta Froelicher, said she understood thatpeople felt hurt and angry about what her husband had done. She saidhe was apologetic for a situation that "backfired" and becameuncontrollable.

"He created kind of an avatar," she said. "When he became thisother person, his opinions were being heard and it took on a life ofits own.

"It was really an attempt to circumvent traditional news mediaand try to talk about things" from a fresh perspective, she said.