Top aide to Morsi under fire on social media

TORONTO – Jubilation from the streets of Cairo flooded social media Wednesday amidst reports that Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi had been replaced by the chief justice of constitutional court.

But the people’s celebration online over ousting the country’s first democratically-elected president was coupled with continuing anger directed at one member of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular – Gehad El-Haddad, a top aide to the now-former president.

The spokesman and son of Morsi’s foreign advisor Essam al-Haddad has been widely criticized on Twitter for defending Morsi and condemning the military coup.

Al-Haddad’s tweets remained candid despite the Twitter backlash, defending Morsi’s legitimacy, saying that while former president Mubarak’s regime rigged elections, Morsi won “fair and square” by democratic vote.

A search for al-Haddad’s Twitter account (@gelhaddad) on Twitter revealed droves of tweets directed at the presidential spokesperson, some even calling him an “Islamist terrorist” and mocked him for being upset over the uprising.

Reports from al-Haddad’s Twitter feed suggest that some may have been trying to interfere with al-Haddad’s use of social media.

“All my accounts on the internet (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Gmail) r being hacked at the same time,” al-Haddad tweeted Wednesday afternoon. However, other than his tweet, the claims are not supported elsewhere online.

Global News complied a look at some of the heated conversations between Egyptians and al-Haddad on Twitter during the uprising.

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