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More on kidnapping in Damascus of lesbian blogger, voice of Syrian opposition



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UPDATE @ 12:20 PM ET, via AP:

An activist with the Local Coordination Committees also said Arraf was taken but gave no details.

"We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her," Ismail wrote. She added that Arraf had previously sent her texts to post should something happen to her, but she was holding off in hopes of hearing further word from her cousin.

The day before she was detained, Arraf wrote: "I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Quraysh, my city is Damascus," she wrote in www.damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com a day before being detained.

"I am also a Virginian. I was born on an afternoon in a hospital in sight of where Woodrow Wilson entered the world, where streets are named for country stars."
The blog is also providing updates on Amina:
Unfortunately, there are at least 18 different police formations in Syria as well as multiple different party militias and gangs. We do not know who took her so we do not know who to ask to get her back. It is possible that they are forcibly deporting her.
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Last week, I wrote a post on AMERICAblog about the brutal crackdown underway in Syria -- even as protests following the release of a video showing the tortured body of a 13-year old boy. The Assad regime is killing and torturing its citizens.

Yesterday, Amina Araf, an American-Syrian lesbian blogger in Syria, was kidnapped. Last night, John wrote about it here. There's more today.

This was posted last night at Lez Get Real:
At approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari of the websites A Gay Girl in Damascus and LezGetReal was abducted by three men. Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station near Fares al Khouri Street. She was on her way to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and she was accompanied by a friend of hers. The two were separated. Amina is openly lesbian and has been part of the opposition to the Assad government in Syria.
More from The Advocate:
Amina Araf, author of the blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus” and voice for the anti-government opposition in Syria, was kidnapped on the streets of Damascus on Monday.

MSNBC reports that Araf, an American-Syrian citizen who wrote under the name Amina Abdallah, was walking with a friend when three armed men in the twenties grabbed her and forced her into a vehicle bearing a window sticker of Bassel Assad, the late brother of President Bashar Assad and former head of security services. Rania Ismail, who identified herself as a cousin of Araf, posted the account of the kidnapping to the blog.

“The blog went on to say, ‘the men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia. Amina's present location is unknown,’” reports MSNBC.
Good to see that MSNBC is on the story. That helps elevate it.

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