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| Texas student Ahmed Mohamed inspires social movement |
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| Tuesday, September 22, 2015 |
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| News of police response to a boy's digital clock in Texas last week has inspired a global social movement in support of the youth. |
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| Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old boy from Irving, Texas, was arrested at his school by police after he brought a digital clock he had made to school. |
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| After news of the police response was reported, Mohamed received support online ranging from US President Barack Obama to Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. |
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| Yesterday Mohamed received VIP attention at Google headquarters in California at the Google Science Fair — and tomorrow he plans to meet international dignitaries at the United Nations headquarters in New York. |
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| US President Barack Obama tweet to student Ahmed Mohamed |
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| Image: Twitter / Barack Obama. |
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| Mohamed brought the digital clock he made to school on September 14, and a teacher mistakenly thought it resembled a bomb. |
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| Police arrested and questioned the student. |
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| Images of the boy wearing a NASA T-shirt and handcuffed by the police were quickly posted and reposted online. |
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| The Deseret News observed that the hashtag on Twitter, #IStandWithAhmed, had become an international phenomenon. |
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| The Straits Times noted what began as individual messages to Mohamed had grown into a 'support movement'. |
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| American academic and professor Marc Lamont Hill commented, |
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| 'Hoping that the #istandwithahmed movement translates into a substantive national conversation on race, punishment, and incarceration.' |
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| The Twitter attention led to outreach from Google and Mohamed was invited to their Google Science Fair. |
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| Mohamed was a VIP guest at the Google Science Fair this weekend, and was able to meet finalists at the event held at Google's headquarters located in Mountain View, California. |
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| Co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, personally met with Mohamed during his visit to Google. |
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| On Wednesday, Mohamed and his father are to travel to the United Nations. |
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| His father Mohamed El-Hassan Mohamed said he was taking his entire family to the U.N. headquarters in New York, because international dignitaries wanted to meet with his son and express their support. |
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| Psychology major at University of Texas Arlington Amneh Jafari heard of the incident and wanted to issue her support to Mohamed. |
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| She chose the hastag #IStandWithAhmed and posted to Twitter. |
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| Jafari said she felt Mohamed had been subject to Islamophobia and her hashtag created greater awareness about this issue. |
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| The hashtag took on a life of its own, and was used in messages on Twitter over one million times by Thursday night. |
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| NASA tweeted support of Ahmed Mohamed via its account International Space Station |
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| Image: Twitter / NASA. |
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| US President Barack Obama tweeted using his @POTUS account: |
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| 'Cool clock, Ahmed. |
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| Want to bring it to the White House? |
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| We should inspire more kids like you to like science. |
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| It's what makes America great.' |
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| Twitter gave Mohamed the option to come to their company for an internship. |
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| Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg tweeted to Mohamed and said the boy was welcome to come and tour the company. |
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| Executive director of the Dallas chapter of the Council on American - Islamic Relations Alia Salem said Mohamed wishes to use his newfound fame and attention to spotlight social causes including the treatment of Muslims in the United States. |
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| University of Texas Arlington Muslim Student Association president Sehar Memon said the large amount of positive feedback for Mohamed had helped make his situation much better. |
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| Memon also said she believed the social movement in reaction to Mohamed helped improve Muslim / non-Muslim. |
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| Both the Irving Independent School District and the Irving Police Department have asserted that the boy's religion and name were not a factor in the manner in which they approached the situation. |