The sister of First Minister Humza Yousaf has revealed she was forced to come off Twitter after seeing the barrage of abuse her brother receives.
Faiza Yousaf said she finds it “hard to restrain myself” after seeing the attacks directed towards the new first minister on social media.
Dundee’s Mr Yousaf has now been in the top job for two weeks, and has faced a number of challenges in his first few days in charge.
However, his sister Ms Yousaf says it is difficult for her to separate Mr Yousaf the politician with Mr Yousaf, her younger brother.
‘I wanted to say something’
Speaking to STV’s Scotland Tonight, Ms Yousaf said she was shaken after overhearing hospital staff mocking her brother.
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’.
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
“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.”
She then spoke to her brother, which helped to “settle” her.
Ms Yousaf added: “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.”
‘It’s something that is quite difficult for me’
However, she said she has been forced to come off Twitter because of the level of attacks Mr Yousaf experiences.
Ms Yousaf said: “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.”
‘Humza has experienced it for years’
Previously Mr Yousaf’s wife, Dundee councillor Nadia El-Nakla, told The Courier there was an “underbelly of racism” in Scotland.
She said when she has expressed her own experience of racist discrimination, the response is to get further discrimination and hate.
Ms El-Nakla said: “Humza has experienced it for years and what he faces is disgusting.
“We have had emails saying our house deserves to be firebombed and the kids burned in the car.
“When my daughter got her baby box we put it on Twitter and someone wrote back saying she deserves to be drowned.
“I felt sad for that person – what kind of black heart do they have to type that?
“What bothers me is the hidden, veiled racism and it has made me determined to speak out.”