Azerbaijani feminist's FB page 'stolen' following Baku Women's Day rally

Sevgi Ismailbeyli

After the feminist rally held on March 8, 2021 in Baku, an Azerbaijani feminist’s FB page was ‘stolen’ while she was in police custody.

Narmin Shahmarzadeh says her phone was revoked while she was at the police department; later she lost control of her page.

“My Facebook account has been hijacked. We contacted the management of [Facebook] to close the account. But they [the police] sent a copy of my ID there. It is known who can do this. All posts and messages distributed after 23:00 on Monday, March 8, do not belong to me,” Shahmarzadeh wrote on her Instagram page.

After the hijacking of the page, the profile name was changed, personal photos, voice messages and fake messages on behalf of the feminist were circulated.

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Another organizer of the feminist rally Gulnara Mehdiyeva and activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev issued warnings on their pages on social media that the disseminated messages were falsified.

“There are messages posted on social media that I do not know about, but in which I allegedly appear. I could edit a hundred such messages on behalf of the family members of Ilham Aliyev,” wrote a former candidate for the Azerbaijani parliament, opposition leader Hajiyev.

Interview Narmin Shahmarzade JAMnews
a month before the promotion

Over 200 comments appeared under fake posts on Narmin Shahmarzadeh’s ‘revoked’ page. Most netizens called such an act ‘incompatible with morality’. But there were also those who were glad to have the opportunity to speak about Shahmarzade under “her post”:

“Hacker, brother, God bless your children, for so long he could not comment on her posts, God bless you,” writes one of the ardent opponents of the feminist movement.

However, some media outlets managed to make screenshots of messages distributed on behalf of Shahmarzadeh before and after the amendments made to them.

Azerbaijani journalist Arzu Geybulla, who lives in Turkey, was able to have Narmin Shahmarzade’s seized Facebook closed 22 hours after its theft.