1. Mehriban Aliyeva is married to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan.
12 Facts About Mehriban Aliyeva
2.
Mehriban Aliyeva's father, Arif Pashayev, is Rector of the National Aviation Academy in Baku, and her mother, Aida Imanguliyeva was a philologist and Arabist, daughter of the journalist and pedagogue Nasir Imanguliyev.
3.
Mehriban Aliyeva entered the Preventive-Treatment Faculty of the Azerbaijan Medical University, in which she excelled, and later continued her studies at the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy, from which she graduated in 1988.
4.
Mehriban Aliyeva got her PhD after defending a thesis on "Euthanasia and humanism issues in medicine" in 2005.
5.
Mehriban Aliyeva established on 10 May 2004 the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which focuses on studying and holding events to promote Heydar Aliyev's political ideology.
6.
Mehriban Aliyeva is UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and Goodwill Ambassador of ISESCO.
7.
Mehriban Aliyeva was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan at the 4th General Assembly of the NOC on 28 December 2004.
8.
Mehriban Aliyeva was selected as the deputy chairperson of the Party in June 2013.
9.
Mehriban Aliyeva was appointed by her husband as the chairperson of the Organizing Committee for the 1st European Games in Baku.
10.
Mehriban Aliyeva had previously broken with tradition to help campaign for her husband in 2003, when he ran for President of Azerbaijan.
11.
In 2015 when asked about the plight of imprisoned journalist Khadija Ismayilova and human rights advocate Leyla Yunus, Mehriban Aliyeva did not respond.
12.
Mehriban Aliyeva married Ilham Aliyev, the son of Heydar Aliyev, in Baku on 22 December 1983.