Zarif, Hacked But Unscathed

This past weekend, Iran’s Facebook friendly Foreign Minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, faced one of the common perils associated with the site: his account was hacked. But the intrusion was no impersonal hack, but a deliberate attempt to use Dr. Zarif’s vast social networking platform to challenge Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The hacker posted his or her message in Persian on early Saturday morning, and provoked a massive reaction from Zarif's over 206,000 Facebook followers before it was deleted.

Some followers thought the message was genuine and even congratulated Zarif on his honesty, while others more savvy with the pitfalls of social networks commented, “Either I am dreaming, or his account has been hacked.”

The hacker’s original message in Persian was posted by the popular Iranian Facebook page “Mamlekate Darim” (And This is a Country We Have?) before it was deleted and reads: “A quote from a friend: Someone needs to tell Mr. Rouhani that the correlation of the 2009 election, with the killing of the youths, vilification [of government opponents], [political] prisoners, Kharizak, dormitories [attacks],  arrests [of Green Movement leaders) has been put aside by his election...Tell him we the people did not vote for you just so that you can put aside the grievances of the 2009 election. Tell him the person that has to address this correlation, which until now still has not, is the system (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei), and not the people who voted for you.”

Immediately after realizing his account had been compromised, Dr. Zarif posted a status update in Persian: “Hello friends, unfortunately my page was entered and used illegally. As long as this condition continues, I will have to end this [form of] communication against my wishes. Thank you for taking this into consideration friends.”

Within an hour President Hassan Rouhani tweeted that not only had his Foreign Minister’s Facebook page been hacked into, but that the Facebook page of Marzieh Afkham, the spokeswomen for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, had also been compromised.

As of Monday, Dr. Zarif’s Facebook account is securely under his control, and he has been active since Saturday’s intrusion. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham’s account. The page is beyond repair as a hacker has been posting in her account throughout the weekend. The hacker changed Ms. Afkham’s profile picture to a photo of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of Ansar-e Hezbollah, and the Facebook page is now filled with posts using extremely vulgar language vilifying Iran’s Supreme Leader and many others, inlcluding VOA journalist Arash Sigarchi, Persian satellite network Manoto TV host Salome Seyednia, Naeimeh Eshraghi the granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, and political activist Mohsen Sazagara. Other posts include photos of scantily clad women, as well as photos of human rights victims and abuses.

With Dr. Zarif’s Facebook activity being the subject of intense media coverage, news of the hack spread rapidly through Iranian social media circles and soon even the semi-official Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) acknowledged and reported that he and Ms. Afkham’s account had been hacked. “As of last night I have not been able to access my (Facebook) account and that I have no information of the (new) subject matter that was posted,” Dr. Zarif told ISNA.

The mere fact that ISNA is publicly acknowledging this breach of security of Dr. Zarif’s official’s Facebookreveals that the debate to lift the ban on Facebook inside Iran is has been well under way.

Twitter and Facebook users began to comment and tweet about Dr. Zarif’s threat of shutting down his Facebook account , calling it a form of collective punishment. Others felt shutting the account down would be a waste of such an important forum to discuss issues regarding Iran and the international community.

The next day, Zarif posted a caricature of himself implying that he won’t be shutting down his Facebook account anytime soon. The drawing depicts Dr. Zarif at ease in an armchair, with his house shoes off and his laptop on his lap, with the thumbs-up symbol used for a “Facebook Like”  piled up beside him.

The most fascinating aspect of the caricature picture is the woman in the background of the picture, dressed in a traditional chador as she sits in front of a desktop computer. Dr. Zarif wrote no description to accompany the picture so his intentions in sharing such a symbolic drawing with slight gender implications are not clear, but the fact that he did so one day after he threatened to shut the page down is a significant gesture in what will be the upcoming battle between the authorities to officially lift the ban on Facebook.