New evidence about Amina, the “Gay Girl in Damascus” hoax

Resolution

A new post on the Gay Girl in Damascus blog includes a confession from Tom MacMaster. Andy Carvin offers independent confirmation of the confession with statements from Tom MacMaster and Britta Froelicher.

MacMaster has also separately confirmed he is behind the hoax in response to an email from The Electronic Intifada asking for confirmation. MacMaster wrote:

Yes. We will be doing a first interview with a journalist of our choice in 12-24 hours. After that, we may consider other media.

Tom

Original post

Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty write:

We have gathered compelling new evidence regarding the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blogger hoax.

Those responsible for this hoax have caused a great deal of concern and anguish by posting information alleging that “Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari” the supposed “Gay Girl” blogger had been kidnapped from the streets of Damascus, possibly by Syrian authorities, and was likely in grave danger.

A measure of the concern that this story has caused is the formation of a Facebook group calling to “Free Amina Arraf” with more than 15,000 members, as well as numerous action alerts and stories in international media.

We believe the story of Amina to be totally baseless and the doubts expressed by other observers, such as Liz Henry and Andy Carvin, to be entirely founded.

We also believe that whoever is responsible for the hoax is attempting to conceal their responsibility and continues to disseminate false information. They have previously engaged in such behavior as taking photographs from the Facebook page of a totally uninvolved individual and deceptively presenting them as being images of Amina and members of her family.

We believe that the person or persons responsible should end this deception which has been harmful to individuals who trusted and believed in “Amina” and more broadly has sown confusion, distraction and absorbed energy and attention at a time when real people are in danger in Syria and in other countries in the region.

We are sharing the information we have gathered here not in order to level accusations, but so that others might pursue these leads to conclusive ends. The best outcome would be if the person or persons behind the hoax would take responsibility themselves to bring the matter to a close and provide all doubters with reassurance that “Amina” is not in danger because she is a fictitious character.

While we believe that the information gathered here is compelling in its own right, we have managed to corroborate additional information from several independent sources that we are not publishing and that significantly increases our confidence in the information we have. We do not know the motives of the person or persons behind this hoax.

The information presented below connects the “Amina” blogger to two people in real life: Thomas (Tom) J MacMaster and Britta Froelicher who are married to each other.

Correspondence

The Electronic Intifada wrote to MacMaster requesting to speak to him about “Amina,” to which he responded, “Thanks, but as I have stated before, it is neither my wife nor me.”

A follow up email from The Electronic Intifada to MacMaster asking to speak to him so that we could present the information we have met with the following response:

Unfortunately, we’re on vacation so I wouldn’t be able to do so. We have already been ‘confronted’ by the Washington post with these and have denied them and will continue to do so.”

We do not know what information The Washington Post may have confronted MacMaster with and whether it is the same information presented here. In a final response to The Electronic Intifada, MacMaster wrote:

I am not the blogger in question. Whomever that person ‘really’ is, I have doubtless interacted with her at some point. I do not know further than that about her. When I first read the news story, I momentarily thought I had an idea who she was. As time has progressed that seems much less likely. I understand there are a number of unusual coincidences regarding the blogger and either me or my wife. Those are, as far as I am aware, simply unusual. I am not going to make more of that.

MacMaster has acknowledged certain “coincidences” but as mentioned refused to grant us an opportunity to go through them in detail in an attempt to explain or debunk them. We present below the information we wanted to discuss with MacMaster.

“Amina’s” home address is the same as MacMaster’s address

On a private Yahoo discussion group named “thecrescentland” that was run and operated by “Amina” and has since been closed down, the following name and physical address information was displayed, according to a person who was a member of that group:

Amina Arraf & Ian Lazarus
c/o Mr & Mrs Abdallah Arraf-Omari
5646 Crestwood Dr, SW
Stone Mountain, GA 30087

There is, however, no evidence of an Amina Arraf, Ian Lazarus or Mr & Mrs Abdallah Arraf-Omari ever owning or occupying this address.

According to State of Georgia property records, the house at that address has been owned by Thomas MacMaster for many years. On 29 November 2007, MacMaster quit-claimed a share of ownership in the property to Britta Froelicher. MacMaster and Froelicher are the current owners of the property according to State property records.

MacMaster has not only owned the property but occupied it until September 2010 when he moved to Scotland. Evidence of his occupation of the property prior to that date includes invitations to barbecues he issued to friends via Facebook.

The possibility that MacMaster could have rented or lent his home to the “real” Amina is excluded by the fact that MacMaster claims not to know Amina.



Photograph of Assad billboard in Syria

In Amina’s 11 May 2011 blog post “Irony” there appears a photograph of a billboard taken in Syria.

The same photo but with a tighter crop appears on Britta Froelicher’s Picasa account.

The photo in the Picasa account also appears to have been sharpened and adjusted. It is clear, from details in the two images, including the person wearing a helmet in the foreground that the images were taken at the same time and place.

However, the fact that the image on the Amina blog has a wider field of view suggests it could not simply have been stolen from Froelicher’s Picasa account. It would appear that the Amina blogger had access to the original image.

Many other images in Froelicher’s account show her and MacMaster in Damascus.

Wikipedia edits from Edinburgh IP addresses

The Lez Get Real (LGR) web site published 19 articles purporting to be authored by an Amina Abdallah. On 10 June 2011, LGR issued An Apology To Our Readers About Amina Abdallah.

The apology claimed that LGR had been deceived by Amina and published her posts in good faith, believing her to be who she presented herself as. It also acknowledged that LGR had assisted Amina in establishing her “Gay Girl in Damascus” blog.

In a comment on that post, Paula Brooks, executive editor of LGR, gave two IP addresses which she said had been used by Amina to access LGR’s servers. The whois records for these IP addreses both have descriptions that indicate they are allocated to UoE or The University of Edinburgh.

One of these IP addresses was the source of a number of edits to various articles on Wikipedia. These edits from 188.74.110.134 begin in October 2010. The edited pages all involve Middle East, Arab, Islamic and historical topics.

MacMaster posted Facebook updates between 4 September 2010 and 8 September 2010 documenting his move from Stone Mountain, Georgia to Edinburgh, UK, including 47 photographs added to a gallery named “First Days in Edinburgh” on 8 September.

Topics of Wikipedia articles edited from the Edinburgh IP address overlap with many topics and subject areas in which MacMaster and Froelicher have documented interests and experiences according to online records.

MacMaster has been active in the University of Edinburgh’s Students for Justice in Palestine.

A note of caution about the source of the information on the IP addresses: Paula Brooks, Executive Editor of LGR claims to work at the Smithsonian Institution and to hold a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and three Masters degrees from Gallaudet University, University of North Carolina, and University of Dayton.

However, Paula Brooks is the sole source of information on Paula Brooks; extensive Internet, dissertation abstract, media, and Lexis-Nexis searches reveal no evidence of the real life existence of such a person beyond the persona on LGR, Facebook and LinkedIn.

“Paula Brooks” may be an avatar for a real person who fits the same description but uses a different name in real life, or it could be a fabricated persona. The IP address information appears circumstantially to match MacMaster’s movements and interests, but, given the uncertainties about its provenance, needs to be treated with extra caution unless Paula Brooks’ identity can be confirmed.

Conclusion

The information we have collected here is not intended as either an accusation or final, conclusive proof of who may be behind the Amina hoax. However taken together we felt it was compelling enough that we had to publish it as soon as possible. This is primarily because we believe, and have observed, that the hoaxer(s) is both attempting to hide information that could lead to discovery and furthering the hoax with other false personas. By sharing this information we want to provide the best chance that this story can be brought to closure and people’s attention directed back toward real world events.

Update

For more analysis, read Chasing Amina by Liz Henry, an author, web developer and expert on sockpuppetry.

Tags

Comments

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I am from Syria, and my impression after reading this blog is that whoever created this blog was trying to hide their real intents in a very smart way:

This is what I believe what the primary intent of the blog: To foment sectarian hatred in Syria.

Notice how Amina talks. Though she is made to be this incredibly nice and wholesome person, she constantly speaks in a highly sectarian way: She is a Sunni, who is defending with her father Sunni interests and rights. She uses the world Muslim to mean Sunni interchangeably and refers to other muslim sects as (infidels, polytheists and heathen – highly inflammatory characterisations). Her attacks are mostly aimed at the Alawi sect and this is most obvious in the 2007 version of the blog which is much more offensive than the 2011 version. This is highly inflammatory language and can cause a lot of trouble in the Middle East if it becomes common wisdom. Social unrest and conflict can result and many places have had sectarian and religious wars and conflicts as a result of ideas such as these.

You will also notice in the two versions (more clearly in the 2007 version) attempts to attack falsifying history. Here in a totally fictional event but that is portrayed as reality (like everything else in the blog), Amina claims that Hafez Assad (Syria's President during the war with Israel over the Golan Heights) caused her Sunni uncle Omar to die by withdrawing and letting a big number of Sunnis to die. He is then portrayed as a traitor to the Sunnis. Readers from the Middle East can easily see through what this blog was trying to achieve.

This was no ordinary hoax, the author took a lot of effort and pain to pull it off. I believe there was an insidious political goal behind. This was possibly part of a cyber war of words and ideas and manipulation being waged on the internet for political gains.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing in Syria is a re-emergence of sectarian talk and hatred – If my suspicions are correct, has this blog and others like it been successful and who is really behind this spreading of misinformation?

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Ramsey.
You do know that the writer of this blog has been identified as one Tom MacMasters-an american from Georgia who is currently in Turkey?
He is apparently very pro Palestinian well I don't know so much pro palestinian as much as anti Israel which is presumably why the blog went in the direction it did….
What struck me about it was that 'Amina' barely mentioned the real atrocities that were being reported and in my opinion the Golan posts were the real purpose of the blog-to bring attention to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and in Syria's case losing the Golan to Israel….. I cannot speak knowledgeably about the intricacies of that….
As a Syrian,you would know better than anyone about the different sects and religions that make up the country and one would hope that you would all come together and be united against the atrocities being committed against ALL Syrians be they Sunni/Alawi/Christian whoever….it really looks as though the country is descending into civil war-which is what Assad has always said would happen-right?
As an observer who lived in the Middle East for 10 years,I believe that if they have got rid of the old regime people,pushed forward some reforms,allowed NGO's to operate,reigned in some of the more greedy members of the Assad family and the murderous Maha Assad, Bashar could have stayed but now I think its too late…...

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I know about MacMaster but I don't think he alone was behind this blog. There are several writers/experts who were involved in this effort at manipulation.
The blog was extremely well written and the people behind it know Syria very well, enough to fool Syrians and Damascenes. The creators of the blog have an incredible understanding of the different issues and social trends in the city and deep expertise in the different topics in the country that they were able to fabricate things flawlessly and without making too many mistakes (though they made a few).
It wasn’t obvious to me that this was a hoax while reading it, it’s only after suspicions were raised that my mind unconsciously went back to the small mistakes that were made: the Arabic was very good but certain idioms contained some very minor mistakes that a native would not make. The fact that she was gay did not strike me as odd because Damascus seems to have had a change of heart on the subject in the last ten years and gays have clearly become visible and open about it, the reaction of her father regarding her homosexuality is typical of a liberal person and many Syrians are liberal. What I found suspicious though was her knowledge of Turkish and Hebrew and her wish to work as a diplomat in Israel; her expert knowledge of Islam; and her expert knowledge of the region’s history, expertise at the level of a scholar who is specialized in each of these distinct topics (normally you will find scholars who are well known and who can write with expertise on a topic or two, but rarely will you see someone who has achieved scholar-like level in such a wide range of topics). If you combine that with the deep knowledge of Syrian and US gay and lesbian issues, the superior writing skills in multiple languages, the poetry, the knowledge of social and religious issues in Syria, it become clear to me that this could not have been the work of some fantasy-striken grad student in Scotland sitting in his home and typing away on his computer.
This is the work of a group of experts who are highly specialized in different topics: Syrian politics and the power structure inner workings; Syrian social trends; deep knowledge of all the religions, sects and communities of the Middle East; Middle East history; how to successfully stir and conduct a revolution; expert knowledge of languages, Arabic, English, Hebrew, Turkish and various regional dialects; social and anthropology issues in Syria.
Notice when this blog came online, in February 2011 after the Tunis and Egypt “revolutions” were either over or underway. Nothing had happened in Syria yet. The blog was a resuscitation of a prior failed blog in 2007 but whose real intents are less clearly disguised. The 2011 blog began as a normal non-political blog but increasingly became highly revolutionary as the protests grew.
The group of people behind this blog have such a complete mastery of the topics that they cover that they falsify facts with extreme ease, warp the truth, engage in revisionist history and manipulate worldwide opinion to suit their objectives.
In the recent past, we have seen the uncovering of a lot of these fabrications, many more have not been uncovered. Wars and occupation and theft have been waged under these false pretenses.
When you put all these things together, I believe we are seeing the work of a governmental agency that has been exposed, most likely the Israelis though there could be a small possibility it could be a US agency. Highly conspirational theory talk, I know, but the only rational explanation I can see.

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I don't know that I agree with you…. the last people on earth who want a toppling of the Assad regime is the Israeli's…. the Golan border has been quiet until very recently for 40 years and they prefer to deal with what or who they know- in this case Assad-father and son who lets face it made very little effort to regain the Golan….
In my opinion reading the blog-it became anti Israel pretty quickly and of course became about the Palestinians which is the way it normally proceeds in the arab world…
I didn't read the old blog-where was the expert knowledge of Hebrew and Turkish?
There are a lot of people who have expert knowledge of the Middle East and
Mac Master's wife apparently has a degree in Syrian studies so it is conceivable that he could have a pretty good understanding of Syrian politics,regional dialects etc-he's obviously pretty interested in the region…
Im only concerned that all this doesn't take away from the fact that civilians are being slaughtered every day- we should all be focused on that...

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Cprincess,

A few answers to your points.

1. Your point #1: The Assad rule has been good for the Israelis. I have heard this point being made increasingly especially recently and it is almost becoming accepted wisdom. I agree that on the surface, this may seem to be the case. I believe this thinking derives mostly from the fact that the Syrian Golan borders have been quiet for over 40 years now. It seems that some sort of understanding has been reached between the two parties about this. Syria being the weaker party, it did not want to engage in a direct fight with Israel because it would lose that fight. The last time it tried it lost the Golan, so the war has been continuing indirectly through its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

So to say that the Assad regime has been good to Israel is incorrect in my opinion. Nobody likes to have enemies and I don't see how we can say that the Assad regime was friendly to Israel.

Having said that, the vast majority of Syrians want to have peace and normal relations with Israel and Israelis.

2. Your point #2: The blog became quite anti-Isreali quicly. It's funny how where we come from influences our reading and understanding of things. As a Syrian, I saw the blog as insidiously and profoundly anti-Syrian. Israelis reading the blog could have seen and focused on perceived anti-Israeli parts (which I didn't pick up by the way) – but this is where I guess our different sensibilities confirm our prejudices and we interpret things according to our perception of the world. Having said that, it is not surprising that the blog was anti-Israeli because it was supposed to be the writing of a Syrian woman.

3. Your point # 3: Where in the blog is Amina's knowledge of Turkish and Hebrew? "Amina" claims to know: Arabic, English, French, Latin, Spanish, Turkish, Hebrew and Maltese. Citation from her "What I want " post- dated May 8.

From Blog citation 2 From "Wahad Wahad Wahad" – May 13: She writes the following: The Bloody Shirt of Sectarian Fear Not: “Oderint Dum Metuant” but “Metuunt Quod Oderunt” I am not sure what language this is – It is not Arabic. Sounds Turkish to me – though Google believes this to be Latin! ((Turkish/Latin speakers – please correct if this is not Turkish). As for Hebrew, other than her claim of knowing it, I don't recall seeing her writing Hebrew in either Hebrew or Latin scripts.

4. Your point #4: MacMaster's wife being involved in this. Agree with you, and I suspect more people may be involved too though I admit that at this point, we don't have solid evidence of this. I would love to see the email correspondence that MacMaster had with the many people previously confirming his existence especially his "Quebec lover" and the people at "Lezgetreel".

5. Your point #5: Need to focus on the civilians being killed. Agree with you. It is time that we forget about this hoax and focus on the real tragedy. In any case, all the best, cprincess.

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You know something guys.... I gave you everything you needed to catch Tom.... yet you still ran around in circles chasing me and scratching your butts like a bunch of monkeys....

so the un-resourced false lez blogger had to go get him for you... I got him, you didnt...

I hope you did not spend much on the Lexus Nexus stuff ... cuz your boss is gonna be-po'ed if you did.

You really suck at your jobs. See ya.

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Are you for real?

How steamy did it get, anyway, those Gchat sessions with 'Amina'?

How did that poem by 'Amina' go again?

May sex to your sex
Grinding in time
With sounds of the City
Stretched out below

Dude, you and Tom are a phenomenon. Consider yourselves members of internet's Hall of Fame and Shame already.

:D

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As a Syrian, I can tell you that it wasn't obvious to me that this was a hoax, the blog was extremely well written and the people behind it knew Syria very well, enough to fool Syrians and Damascenes. The creators of the blog have an incredible understanding of the different issues and social trends in the city and deep expertise in the different topics in the country that they were able to fabricate things flawlessly and without making too many mistakes (though they made a few).

It wasn't obvious to me that this was a hoax while reading it, it's only after suspicions were raised that my mind unconsciously went back to the small mistakes that were made: the Arabic was very good but certain idioms contained some minor mistakes that a native would not make. The fact that she was gay did not strike me as odd because Damascus seems to have had a change of heart on the subject in the last ten years and gays have clearly become visible and open about it, the reaction of her father regarding her homosexuality is typical of a liberal person and many Syrians are liberal. What I found suspicious though was her knowledge of Turkish and Hebrew and her wish to work as a diplomat in Israel; her expert knowledge of Islam; and her expert knowledge of the region's history, expertise at the level of a scholar who is specialized in each of these distinct topics (normally you will find scholars who are well known and who can write with expertise on a topic or two, but rarely will you see someone who has achieved scholar-like level in such a wide range of topics). If you combine that with the deep knowledge of Syrian and US gay and lesbian issues, the superior writing skills in multiple languages, the poetry, the knowledge of social and religious issues in Syria, it become clear to me that this could not have been the work of some fantasy-striken grad student in Scotland sitting in his home and typing away on his computer.

This is the work of a group of experts who are highly specialized in different topics: Syrian politics and the power structure inner workings; Syrian social trends; deep knowledge of all the religions, sects and communities of the Middle East; Middle East history; how to successfully stir and conduct a revolution; expert knowledge of languages, Arabic, English, Hebrew, Turkish and various regional dialects; social and anthropology issues in Syria.

Notice when this blog came online, in February 2011 after the Tunis and Egypt "revolutions" were either over or underway. Nothing had happened in Syria yet. The blog was a resuscitation of a prior failed blog in 2007 but whose real intents are less clearly disguised. The 2011 blog began as a normal non-political blog but increasingly became highly revolutionary as the protests grew.

The group of people behind this blog have such a complete mastery of the topics that they cover that they falsify facts with extreme ease, warp the truth, engage in revisionist history and manipulate worldwide opinion to suit their objectives.

In the recent past, we have seen the uncovering of a lot of these fabrications, many more have not been uncovered. Wars and occupation and theft have been waged under these false pretenses.

When you put all these things together, I believe we are seeing the work of a governmental agency that has been exposed, most likely the Israelis though there could be a small possibility it could be a US agency. Highly conspirational theory talk, I know, but the only rational explanation I can see.

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Hey, when you're already deep in a hole, stop digging! You didn't catch Tom, you were fooled by him. And it wasn't the IP that you published at LGR that was essential for catching him, it was the real life address provided by that "alternate history" fan. That led to MacMaster's home. And you didn't do anything to investigate that.

Really, instead of complaining that your fake identity became a collateral damage in the investigation, you should better shut up and lawyer up! Because it may be some of the girls who financially supported LGR will sue you for fraud. So, you should keep a very low profile now. Everything you post may be used against you in court.

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Thanks for sharing this probing research. It seems we should all be reminded of (1) how very easy it is to fabricate news that appears credible and (2) how very quick we often accept 'news' as credible reality. Perhaps we should remember the adage 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me'. The key question now seems to be 'why'--why was it felt so necessary to go to such lengths to provoke a reaction?

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Would be nice to read your opinion on the MacMaster apology, and the impact of the scandal on bloggers in the Middle East, Ali!

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Paula Brooks herself is a fake character by Bill Graber, a straight man.

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