A UCP leadership candidate said that she will not back down after hackers posted criminal material to her personal and public Facebook accounts.
Leela Aheer said that she woke up on Tuesday morning to messages that her Facebook accounts had been hacked and that several of her posts had violated terms and services as well as rules against "child nudity and sexual exploitation."
Chestermere RCMP confirmed to the Calgary Herald on Wednesday that an investigation into the incident has been launched, and that no other information could be shared. Aheer said she was working with the RCMP and thanked them for their help.
"I believe that these attacks on my account were driven by people who want to silence my voice and our campaign," Aheer said in a press conference on Wednesday. "To whoever perpetrated this attack on myself and my family, you will not win. I will not back down."
Aheer does not believe the attack originated from another campaign, though she does believe it was targeted.
Aheer said that the incident transcends the leadership race. "The only impact it should have is on us as a society. How do we want to move forward?" Aheer said. "This is not anybody’s vision for Alberta. So we take a moment to take a stand collectively, to stand against the kind of people who would do this kind of thing."
Duane Bratt, a political scientist from Mount Royal University, agrees, saying that the issue "isn't right or left, it's right or wrong."
"It doesn’t matter if you’re Rachel Notley or Michelle Rempel Garner. It doesn’t matter if you’re Shannon Phillips or if you’re Leela Aheer. … This is a trend, and it appears to be getting worse," Bratt said of targeted incidents against female politicians. "There’s a harnessing of this anger, and I think this is dangerous, and this is just a further escalation of that."
Aheer is a UCP MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore and is in the race to replace Premier Jason Kenney, along with Brian Jean, Todd Loewen, Rajan Sawhney, Rebecca Schulz, Danielle Smith, and Travis Toews.
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