Online campaigns to free a Syrian-American lesbian blogger gained momentum Tuesday as thousands of people worldwide demanded her release. 
 
 The disappearance of Amina Arraf, a 36-year-old writer known for her frank posts about her sexuality and open criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule, prompted an outpouring of support from social network users. 
 
 Arraf wrote a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's violent uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests. She was detained after weeks on the run in the Syrian capital, family members said Tuesday. 
 
 As soon as Arraf's partner, Sandra Bagaria of Montreal, learned of her disappearance, she quickly turned to Twitter and Facebook for help, The New York Times reported. 
 
 By 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, The Free Amina page on Facebook had gained 8,066 followers, up from 150 followers Monday evening. Online support poured in from South America, North America, Europe, Africa and Australia. 
 
 "God Bless you, wherever you are may your courage be an example to others. Support and solidarity against repression in any form from Darjeeling, India," posted Kundan Rai on Tuesday. Minutes later, Rim Toum shared this Facebook post: "Support from Tunisia! We think about the Syrian people and wish them to gain their freedom soon." 
 
 On Petitionbuzz.com, at least 1,418 people signed an online petition calling for Arraf's release on Tuesday. "Let her go!" wrote Anabelle Vo on the site. 
 
 Attempts by msnbc.com to contact Bagaria or family members were unsuccessful Tuesday evening. 
 
 'I am complex' 
 
 Arraf’s cousin, Rania Ismail, said the blogger was last seen Monday being bundled into a car by three men in civilian clothes. The car, Ismail wrote in a post on her cousin's blog, had a sticker depicting Assad's late brother Basel, according to a friend who was nearby and saw what happened. Basel Assad died before he could inherit the office. 
 
 Ismail said Arraf was detained as she and the friend were on their way "to meet a person involved" with the Local Coordination Committee, an activist group that helps organize and document protests calling for an end to the Assad regime. 
 
 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." 
 
 Secret police 
 
 Since the uprising against Assad began in mid-March, a government crackdown has left about 1,300 people dead and more than 10,000 detained, according to human rights groups. Several activists who were briefly detained during the revolt said they were tortured, humiliated and forced to sign pledges to avoid anti-regime activities. 
 
 In one post, Arraf wrote about taking part in a Damascus protest that was broken up by security forces. 
 
 "Busloads of secret police armed with batons — thousands of them — met us around Abbasiyeen Square and began to assault the edges of the crowd," she wrote. "Teargas was lobbed at us. I saw people vomiting from the gas as I covered my own mouth and nose and my eyes burned. ... We broke and were scattered." 
 
 But she gained prominence after writing on April 26 about two plainclothes security agents who came to her home to detain her and were argued into leaving by her father. Soon afterward, Arraf and her father went into hiding, changing location frequently in Damascus, the Syrian capital. 
 
 Homosexuality is illegal in Syria and gays are frowned upon by the country's conservative society. It is rare for gay Arabs to speak openly about their sexuality, and even rarer for parents to defend them. 
 
 "I went into a hair salon one day and, not long after I arrived, I picked up on something between the women working there; I spoke around in circles and so did they and finally learned that the women there were all gay. We relaxed, we talked. 
 
 "I realized I'd found an underground outpost of our kind. I found a cafe where women held hands," she wrote. 
 
 Arraf insisted that she wouldn't flee Syria, saying that activists had to fight for a more liberal and democratic country. 
 
 In her blog, Arraf wrote that the regime no longer had the power to frighten Syrians. 
 
 "For an oppressive system to work, it doesn't need an enormous network of spies, of prisons, of torturers and so on ... it needs just one thing: for the great majority of the people to actually — believe — that the state is mighty and vicious and to be afraid of it." 
 
 "And all we ever had to do was to stop being afraid. And the moment that we stopped being afraid, the earth shook. The regime cannot long survive if the people no longer are scared," she wrote. 
 
 "They may be deadly but we are not afraid any longer. We are becoming free." 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| The reported disappearance of a gay Syrian-American blogger has attracted skepticism after a London woman claimed the photos published by news organizations worldwide are of her, not of the blogger, and that the blogger stole her identity a year ago. 
 
 Amina Arraf, known for her criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad and her open posts about sexuality on a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," was last seen Monday evening being forced into a car in Syria's capital, her cousin, Rania Ismail, said. News sites, including msnbc.com , reported the 35-year-old writer's disappearance on Tuesday, along with a photo of her. 
 
 On Wednesday, a London publicist said photos circulating are actually of Jelena Lecic, a Croatian woman who works as an administrator at the Royal College of Physicians in London. Lecic believes her identity has been used before by Arraf. 
 
 Jelena Lecic, who lives in London, said her photo was used alongside stories about a missing Syrian blogger. The blogger has previously claimed photos of Lenic were of her, she said. 
 
 "Just over a year ago, a friend called Jelena up and said, 'Do you have another identity up on Facebook? Because there's someone else who has your pictures up but not your name," publicist Julius Just told msnbc.com. "She and her friend complained, and Facebook removed it, and she believed it was the end of the matter." 
 
 But when news of Arraf's disappearance broke, Just said Lecic saw her photo alongside the story in London's Guardian newspaper. It was one of the same photos her friend had spotted on Facebook a year ago under a different profile name: Amina Abdalla Arraf. 
 
 Lecic called The Guardian to request the photo be taken down, only to find it replaced with another photo of her. 
 
 “I pray that Amina is safely returned to her family but I want to make it quite clear that I am not her despite my photographs being attached to this story,” Lecic said in a press release. 
 
 Lecic's Facebook profile shows her with dark hair and a distinct mole above her left eye, which was visible in the photos circulated that purported to be Arraf. 
 
 Her publicist said he questioned whether Arraf was a real person. 
 
 "She could be a composite. Who knows? She claims online that she was born in the United States, but researchers can find no records of her born in the U.S.," Just told msnbc.com. "Why would you take another woman's identity and claim it as your own? If she is real, Jelena is extremely concerned for her and her family, but her identity has been stolen. This is a serious situation." 
 
 Just said Lecic does not know Arraf and has no connection to her. The photos appeared to be lifted from Lecic's Facebook account, but she does not know by whom. 
 
 No face-to-face interaction with the blogger 
 
 Meanwhile, other skeptics pointed out that no one — including a woman who initially claimed she was Arraf's girlfriend — has publicly said they have met the blogger in person. 
 
 The Facebook page dedicated to finding Arraf took down this photo after controversy over its authenticity emerged. 
 
 NPR journalist and Middle East social media expert Andy Carvin reported he could not find anyone who had met Arraf in person. Various journalists said they had interviewed Arraf in the past via email or text chat, including a CNN.com reporter who published quotes emailed from Arraf in a story last month. 
 
 And a Canadian woman living in Montreal who identified herself as Arraf's girlfriend in interviews with The New York Times, The Global Winnipeg, and Al Jazeera later clarified that she has only communicated with Arraf via email, not face-to-face. 
 
 The photos that Lecic claim are hers were removed from news sites, as well as from a Facebook page dedicated to finding Arraf, called "Free Amina Abdalla." Artists' renditions of the blogger were put up instead. 
 
 Addressing the controversy about Arraf's identity, the owner of the Facebook page wrote, "At the time this site was created, there was no reason to doubt her authenticity of the story ... We think it is possible that the writer of the blog is indeed in custody, in which case, it is important to continue to support her. Many people in Syria are forced to use alternative identities to protect themselves." 
 
 Messages from msnbc.com left for Arraf's cousin and girlfriend were not returned.
– Outspoken Syrian-American blogger Amina Arraf was grabbed on the street yesterday, someone claiming to be her cousin wrote on her blog. Araff wrote a blog entitled A Gay Girl in Damascus, which had spoken out in favor of the protest movement, according to MSNBC. A post yesterday from a woman calling herself Rania Ismail said that a friend had watched three men in their 20s grab Araff. “Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father. One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad,” the post reads, referring to the the late brother of President Bashar Assad. So far the blog says there’s no word on precisely who took her or where she is. The 36-year-old Arraf is a Virginia native who holds dual citizenship, reports the New York Times.