On Monday, Ahmed brought his engineering homework project – a homemade clock – into Irving MacArthur High School in Texas and demonstrated it to his teacher, who strangely advised him not to show it to anyone else. Weird.
When the clock rang in class later that day, Ahmed had his clock confiscated by a teacher who mistook it for a bomb.
Ahmed was then arrested and taken to Irving police headquarters to be questioned, fingerprinted and photographed, and was suspended from school. This is what happened next...
Why is #IStandWithAhmed trending?
Social Media went wild about Ahmed’s story and #IStandWithAhmed started trending on Twitter.
His older sisters then decided to set up a Twitter account under the same name as the hashtag, which has since become verified and has over 71,000 followers.
Alia Salem, director of the North Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the arrest ‘raises a red flag.’
What’s happened in the last 24 hours?
Within 24 hours of having his homemade clock mistaken for a bomb, Ahmed has gained 71,000 Twitter followers on his verified account as well as invites, presents and tours from Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter, NASA and (this one is a bit random) Ne-Yo.
Barack Obama tweeted:
Mark Zuckerberg posted on Facebook:
‘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.’
Hilary Clinton tweeted:
NASA tweeted:
Daniel Tani (Former astronaut) tweeted:
Twitter tweeted:
Space Camp USA tweeted:
And just to show that support for Ahmed is coming from every industry, Ne-Yo tweeted:
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.