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News Commentary

#IStandWithAhmed: Netizens enraged over racism against 14-year-old Muslim

Philstar.com

MANILA, Philippines - Ahmed Mohamed showed creativity and in return he was arrested. 

Mohamed made a handmade clock and took it to school for his engineering teacher to see, but instead of glorifying his invention, he was suspended for coming to school and was taken to police. According to reports, the clock was mistaken for a bomb.

Netizens quickly weighed in and slammed the Islamophobic double standard that the 14-year-old boy has received.

"I built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. So it was really sad she took the wrong impression of it," Ahmed said at a news conference in front of his family's home.

The hashtag IStandWithAhmed quickly erupted in social media, with President Barack Obama and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joining other netizens showing support for the boy.

"You've probably seen the story about Ahmed, the 14 year old student in Texas who built a clock and was arrested when he took it to school. Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed. Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I'd love to meet you. Keep building," the Facebook mogul said on his post.

In the Philippines, Twitter users also aired their opinions:

vuukle comment

AHMED

BLOCKQUOTE

COM

HREF

HTTPS

ISTANDWITHAHMED

LANG

QUOT

SCRIPT

SRC

TWITTER

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