Farangis, a 22-year-old actress and dancer from Dushanbe, was horrified to see images of herself being billed online as a "Tajik hooker," according to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service.
She had reportedly clicked onto the obscure Instagram account after a friend recognized her among the photos of nude or seminude women. They appeared carefully selected to give the impression that all were of the same person.
Farangis, who asked RFE/RL's Tajik Service not to use her full name, says her photos had been taken from social media and reposted alongside images of a naked woman with a similar build.
Tajik police confirm Farangis’s account and say they have launched an investigation.
The Interior Ministry says “more than 10 women” have complained of being similarly targeted, and some have reportedly paid off blackmailers in an effort to have their images removed.
A self-described independent career woman, Farangis fears for her reputation in conservative Tajik society. Already, she says, some people refuse to believe that she didn't post the photos herself.
She also appealed to other young women whose images and details she found alongside her own, albeit with little success.
Abdurahmon Sharifov, a lawyer for Tajikistan’s Human Rights Center in the capital, says that many families try to settle such problems in private, believing that complaining about it to authorities might simply exacerbate the problem publicly.
Sharifov urges victims not to give in to blackmail and instead to report similar incidents to law enforcement agencies.
Police say that some of the victims were befriended online before being persuaded to provide private photos, while others simply discovered that their selfies and other images had been taken from social media outlets like Facebook or VK (formerly VKontakte), the leading Russian-language social network.
Many of the photos appeared on Instagram accounts along with the victims’ real names and, in some cases, correct phone numbers.
Some of the offending accounts — including one with thousands of followers and hundreds of posts — have been deleted, apparently after they were reported by the victims and authorities.
