A Muslim boy in the US arrested over a homemade clock today said he will not return to the school where teachers got him arrested for an invention that ‘looked like a bomb’ as more support gathered for the 14-year- old, with people questioning the real motive of his detention.
Ninth-grader Ahmed Mohamed from Irving in Texas does not wish to return to MacArthur High and is searching for another school though his three-day suspension came to an end today, the CNN reported.
The teen’s family stated that they will consider other schools, possibly even some outside of the US. Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed said his son will either enroll at a private school or be home schooled.
Mohamed’s handcuffing and arrest over an innocent attempt to impress his teachers with his homemade clock sparked a debate, including on social media where netizens questioned the real motive of teachers and authorities amid fears of Islamophobia as the child in question was of brown skin and a Muslim.
Some Facebook users ‘shared’ a post that suggested the authorities never really thought the teen had a real bomb and wanted to ‘humiliate a little Muslim, African boy’.
The post highlighted why the school was not immediately evacuated following the beep and discovery of the clock – a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.
“…They (authorities) didn’t evacuate the school – like you do when there’s a bomb. They didn’t call a bomb squad – like you do when there’s a bomb. They didn’t get as far away from him as possible – like you do when there’s a bomb. Then they put him and the clock in an office – not like you do when there’s a bomb. Then they waited with him for the police to arrive. Then they put the clock in the same car as the police. Then they took pictures of it…” it read.
After the Sudanese-American found support in US President Barack Obama and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called him “an ideal student” and said that he is the kind of student who deserves to be at MIT or Harvard.
“If there’s any possibility that you can come visit us at MIT, I would love to give you a tour of the centre for theoretical physics and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics. You are the kind of student that we want at places like MIT and Harvard,” she told Mohamed on a TV show.
Mohamed has earlier said he wants to attend MIT for college.
Last night, the teen’s father told a prayer rally outside his home that he was still hoping for more explanation as to why his son had been treated the way he was.
“What happened to my son doesn’t look like America,” he was quoted as saying by the CBS. “It’s not something good. It’s not something right. It’s wrong.
——PTi