LESBIAN BLOGGER DISAPPEARS IN SYRIA

An openly-lesbian blogger has apparently been abducted in Damascus, leaving her concerned family unsure of her whereabouts.

Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, who is Syrian-American and has been profiled by international media for her blog ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus‘, was out with a friend on Monday when she was taken.

According to a posting on the blog by her cousin, Araf’s friend saw three armed men in their twenties grab her and bundle her into a vehicle which then drove off. Araf shouted out to her friend to tell her family what had happened.

Araf’s family believe that the abductors are members of the security services or the Baath Party militia.

“I have just spoken with her father who is trying to locate her. He has asked me to share this information with her contacts in the hope that someone may know her whereabouts and so that she might be shortly released,” Araf’s cousin wrote on her blog.

“We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her.”

It is unclear if Araf was taken because of being openly lesbian or because of her vocal opposition to the Syrian regime and its recent crackdown on public protests.

She has repeatedly called for the oppressive Syrian government to go.

“One thing is becoming clear; we’re done with dictators and rule by strong men. No more generals, no more dictators, no more fake royal clans,” she wrote.