FAIZA Yousaf, the sister of the First Minister, has revealed that she came off Twitter after seeing attacks on her younger brother.
In an interview with STV, she said she found it “hard to restrain myself” after witnessing some of the abuse sent to her brother via social media.
She said: “I was recently in the hospital for a hospital appointment with my mum, and was walking through and I heard the sort of porters talking amongst each other.
“And one of them said, ‘yeah, you know, useless Yousaf’. I wanted to say something to that but I was like, well, they’re entitled to their opinion about someone. He’s a public figure.”
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She explained that she spoke to her brother about what she had heard and that his reaction to the comments helped “settle” her.
“He was able to almost laugh it off, like, ‘how unfortunate Yousaf goes with useless’. If he’s able to be quite relaxed and not take these remarks so to heart, that kind of helps me.”
However, Faiza revealed that she did have to come off Twitter after seeing the scale of abuse her brother faces.
Faiza Yousaf has said she came off Twitter after witnessing ‘attacks’ on her younger brother.https://t.co/1qRRw0RCzq pic.twitter.com/PqCA02Zr0X
— STV News (@STVNews) April 13, 2023
She explained: “It’s sort of hard to restrain myself and appreciate that there’s no point in arguing with people on social media or saying anything.
“There’s been the odd thing where I’ve come on, but it doesn’t do me any good. It’s something that is quite difficult for me – to separate out the politician from the brother. So for me, Humza is Humza.
“He’s my little brother and the two are kinda meshed together, whereas when I see things online, it’s quite hard to separate. That's not my little brother they're attacking.”
Meanwhile, Yousaf told The National this week that he remains committed to setting up regional independence assemblies to allow SNP members to help decide the party’s route towards independence.
Scottish Parliament business is set to return to normal next week after a period of recess.
So far, the First Minister has only faced one FMQs, which was severely disrupted by protesters in the gallery.
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