Imagine you are a young woman walking through the streets of your home town with a friend on a balmy summer evening, when you are seized by three armed men and bundled into the back of a car. Your family have no idea where you are or who has taken you — you are entirely helpless.
This is the fate that has befallen Amina Abdallah Arraf, a Syrian blogger and poet who has achieved relative notoreity for her frank discussion of the country’s politics and the logistics of being a lesbian in a traditionally conservative society. Her blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, has acquired a considerable following in both Syria and abroad — a fact that seems not to have escaped the notice of the country’s security forces.
Since her kidnapping last night, there has been no news of her whereabouts or her safety. Her disappearance was reported on her blog by her cousin, Rania Ismail.
“Amina was seized by three men in their early 20s. One of the men then put his hand over [her] mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan…Amina’s present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus… We do not know who has taken her, so we do not know who to ask for her back.”
For Amina’s family, the anguish of not knowing her fate must be almost unbearable — but this incident is important not only for the dramatic way in which Amina was taken, but also because it deals a further blow to freedom of speech in a country known for its brutal treatment of dissenters and activists. According to human rights groups, over 10,000 individuals — including women and children — have been forcibly detained since anti-government protests began in March.
Social media has its role to play here. The “Free Amina Arraf” Facebook page has already amassed over 4,000 followers (and counting), and activists have been tweeting the news using the hashtag #FreeAmina. But it is difficult to know how much impact such guestures will really have. For Amina and those like her, incacerated for speaking their minds, there is little left to do but wait in hope. As she herself wrote in a poem entitled “Bird Songs” in her last blog post on Monday: “Freedom is coming/ Here I am wanting/ To know it one day”.
Emanuelle Degli Esposti is a freelance journalist currently living and working in London. She has written for the Sunday Express, the Daily Telegraph and the Economist online.
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