Chestermere-Strathmore MLA and UCP Leadership Candidate Leela Aheer is not backing down after her social media accounts were hacked.
Aheer’s Facebook pages were hacked about a week before, and she was working to restore the pages to continue using them for her campaign.
Tuesday morning, she woke up and was shocked to find unfamiliar links on her campaign Facebook page of child sexual exploitation and illegal content.
When Aheer saw the photo that was linked to her personal Facebook page, she called the RCMP.
“As soon as I saw the picture, I phoned the RCMP because it’s criminal,” Aheer said. “I was terrified at what I was looking at. I don’t have words to describe what myself, my family, and team have viewed and seen in the last few days.”
Aheer is confident that the individual responsible will be caught and is not going to let the social media attack stop her.
“We will catch this person, I’m not backing down, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not going to be stopped,” Aheer said. “I won’t tolerate bigotry ever. I’m willing to call it out, and I’m willing to take the hit from people who don’t understand what we’re trying to accomplish, what’s necessary for a public figure, and what’s necessary for the leadership of our province.”
Aheer believes the attack was targeted and won’t tolerate it.
“It’s motivated me to be a good person. The fact they would use the violation of a child to try and discredit me or my team, I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Once you’ve seen things like this, it changes you as a person. What we’re dealing with is the most vile, and depraved things that you can possibly imagine.”
Aheer has worked to pass policies addressing domestic violence and sexual assault.
“I’ve worked really hard to pass policies that are meaningful and conducive, and tools to help people who are victims and survivors,” Aheer said. “I have every intention of leading this province forward in whatever capacity that is. This behaviour isn’t going to stop us from doing that, we’re going to stand strong.”
The attack is now begin investigated by the RCMP, and Aheer is grateful for their quick response, and assistance in helping her, her family, and her team navigate the attack.
“The only way out of this is to shine a light on it, tell the truth about it, work hard to end that kind of violence and the perpetuation of that kind of violence, and to catch the people that would perpetuate it,” Aheer said.
Aheer won’t let the attack stop her from using her platforms to stand up against bigotry, and racism.
“Fear is instilled in good people who are trying to make changes throughout the province. It doesn’t matter the politics to me, this is deeper than that, and this kind of atrocious behaviour needs to be called out,” Aheer said. “We have a responsibility to call this out, the only way we can stop this stuff from happening is to talk about it, and to not allow it to perpetuate.”
