Omari was, in fact, a hoax persona created by the American citizen and then-student of the University of Edinburgh , Thomas Jarvis MacMaster. In the wake of the reports, questions arose regarding the possibility that Arraf al Omari was an elaborate hoax. The photos purported to be of her were proven to be a Croatian woman residing in Britain, with no relation to Syria, the blog, or the ongoing protests in the country. MacMaster created the character Amina Abdallah as a fictional persona or alias; MacMaster said in an interview with National Public Radio that he could not recall when he created the character.
NPR stated that it found posts from Amina at the Yahoo! MacMaster said that he created the Amina character so he could more easily participate in discussions about the Middle East. MacMaster believed that if he used his real name, people would have presumed that he was too closely tied to the United States, but as Amina he would have more credibility.
As Amina, MacMaster posted on various listservs and websites. MacMaster fleshed out the character's background, and he said that he began writing a novel based on the character. Eventually, he created various profiles for Amina at various social networking sites. Originally he used the character to discuss politics of the Middle East and science fiction. In the northern hemisphere fall of , MacMaster moved Amina to Syria.
MacMaster said that he was going to stop using the persona by then. Graber said that the interaction "was a major sock-puppet hoax crash into a major sock-puppet hoax. The blog gained popularity after an April 26 post titled "My Father the Hero" [ 21 ] [ 22 ] about two security agents who came to her home to detain her and were kept away by her father. She and he were described as going into hiding soon after, changing locations in Damascus. In May , Katherine Marsh of The Guardian , then deceived by the hoax, described the blog as "brutally honest, poking at subjects long considered taboo in Arab culture".
According to Doherty of The Electronic Intifada , MacMaster had also created social media profiles, including on Facebook , for both Amina and her fictitious cousin Rania, and had used them to correspond with activists for Palestinian and other causes.
