US Embassy in Cairo deletes Jon Stewart tweet that offended Egyptian leader
Source: Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Oh, the perils of digital diplomacy!
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo temporarily shut down its Twitter feed on Wednesday and deleted a tweet linking to a video of “The Daily Show,” in which host Jon Stewart mocked Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The monologue about the arrest of an Egyptian satirist offended the Egyptian government and sparked an unusual diplomatic incident.
The embassy’s Twitter account was deleted — and then restored minus the Stewart post — after Egyptian authorities objected to a tweet that contained a link to Stewart’s Monday show in which he joked about the arrest of a high-profile satirist, Bassam Youssef, who has poked fun at Morsi, U.S. officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In the clip tweeted by the embassy, Stewart came to the defense of Youssef and criticized Morsi for his arrest and interrogation as being undemocratic and petty. Youssef has been a guest on Stewart’s program.
Replying to the embassy on Twitter, Morsi’s office wrote, “It’s inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda.”
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-shuts-down-cairo-embassy-twitter-feed-after-jon-stewart-tweet-offends-egyptian-leader/2013/04/03/ce933fb4-9c79-11e2-9219-51eb8387e8f1_story.html
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