OBAMA, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE BACK MUSLIM BOY WITH CLOCK
Ninth-grader Ahmed Mohamed’s sisters worry life will never be the same for him. The teen, who was handcuffed as a terror suspect at school on Monday, is now a national celebrity.
President Barack Obama has invited him to the White House, Mark Zuckerberg wants him over at Facebook whenever he can, and he figured in the Republican debate Wednesday night.
Mohamed’s troubles began Monday when a clock he had put together was noticed by his english teacher at school in Dallas, Texas, who according to police, found it “suspicious in nature”.
The teen, who, his family has said, likes to tinker around with gadgets, broken phones and computers, told the teacher and school authorities it was just a clock, and nothing else.
The authorities thought it to be a device to set off a bomb. The police were called and soon Mohamed found himself being marched off to a juvenile center in handcuffs.
He was later handed over to his parents.
The police insisted the incident had nothing to do with Mohamed’s religious beliefs — Islam — saying they would have reacted the same way for any other teen or man.
“That is not America,” the teen’s father Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed told reporters. This was a new experience for him. He and his family came to the US from Sudan 30 years ago.
But as word got out of the the teen’s handcuffing, a sense of outrage was felt around the country. “It’s clear that at least some of Ahmed’s teachers failed him,” said the White House.
Mohamed soon became a star on social media, with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed tweeted more than a million times by Wednesday night. Many also took to social media to criticise police and officials at MacArthur High School, suspecting them of overreacting because of the boy’s religion.
President Obama joined in. “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great,” he tweeted.”
“Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post, “Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I’d love to meet you. Keep building.”
The response has been overwhelming for the family. “It’s a blessing and a curse,” the teen’s sister Ayisha told Dallas News, “I don’t think he’ll ever be able to live normally again.”