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Ahmed Mohamed

Ahmed Mohamed16 posts

Ahmed Mohamed is an American student born in 2001. On September 15, 2015, he brought a homemade clock to school, which teachers mistook for a bomb, resulting in his arrest.

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23 Nov, 2015

Threatens $15 million lawsuit

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Mohamed’s lawyers send letters demanding $10 million from the city of Irving and $5 million from the Irving Independent School District. The letters say Mohamed was publicly mistreated, and threaten lawsuits and seek written apologies.

20 Oct, 2015

Family will move to Qatar

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Mohamed’s family announce that he will move with them to Qatar. The family apparently made the decision in the past 24 hours and will move next week so he can begin school at the Qatar Foundation, where he will receive a full scholarship.

After careful consideration of all the generous offers received, we would like to announce that we have accepted a kind offer from Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) for Ahmed to join the prestigious QF Young Innovators Program, which reflects the organization’s on-going dedication to empowering young people and fostering a culture of innovation and creativity.

14 Oct, 2015

Mohamed, Bashir meet

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Mohamed meets with Sudanese President Bashir in Khartoum. The teenager tells reporters that he was “extremely delighted” to meet Bashir and hopes to return to visit the Sudanese president again “with a new invention and success.” Ahmed’s father, who has campaigned against Bashir in two presidential elections:

[I hope talented young people] will write a new [chapter in] history for an advanced and developed Sudan.

28 Sep, 2015

Visits New York City Hall

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Mohamed is a guest of honor at New York’s City Hall, where he is given a proclamation from Public Advocate James, who calls him a role model and lets him sit in her chair in the council chambers. He also meets Mayor De Blasio.

25 Sep, 2015

Family retains legal counsel

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Mohamed’s parents say they have retained legal counsel, and aim to recover his clock from the police. Statement:

The family says that Ahmed has been severely traumatized. The family wants justice and to ensure no family will ever have to experience what Ahmed went through again,

22 Sep, 2015

Withdraws from school

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Mohamed’s father says he has pulled all of his children from their Irving Independent School District schools. He says the family is still deciding where to send the children to school. He says the turmoil surrounding the case has resulted in his son losing his appetite and not sleeping well.

Ahmed said, ‘I don’t want to go to MacArthur. These kids aren’t going to be happy there…It’s torn the family and makes us very confused.

Numerous schools have offered to enroll Ahmed, But his father says he wants to give his son a breather before making a decision.

21 Sep, 2015

Questions Mohamed’s ‘motives’

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Dawkins writes a series of tweets that question Mohamed’s motives, and questions whether the clock was an invention at all. The scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock is in an invention, but a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing.

If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so…This man seems to know what he’s talking about…Assembling clock from bought components is fine. Taking clock out of its case to make it look as if he built it is not fine. Which is true?…Yes, there are other reasons why a boy might take a clock out of its casing & pretend he’d made it. Trying to impress teachers, for instance…If the reassembled components did something more than the original clock, that’s creative. If not, it looks like hoax.

17 Sep, 2015

Takei offers support

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In a Facebook message, Takei compares his own experiences in an internment camp to Mohameds arrest.

But I want you to know, while America may have done a terrible thing to me and my family, and to 120,000 other Japanese Americans, I have great hope for this country, and I believe we do learn. There was a Japanese word we often said in the camps: Gaman. It means to keep on keeping on, with dignity and fortitude. I think you understand this word already. While certain school officials and police officers may have shown you the worst side of our nation, I understand many others have since shown you the best side. I was touched to hear you say that we all have to be true to ourselves. Ahmed, you are now part of the story of America, and many will learn from your fine example. I see great things ahead for you.

16 Sep, 2015

Press conference

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Mohamed talks to the media for the first time.

So I guess everyone knows I’m the person who built the clock and got into a lot of trouble for it.  built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her she thought it was a  threat to her. It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it, and I got arrested later that day. But since the charges have already been dropped I really want to go to MIT. I think of transferring school from McArthur to any other school. Thank you to all my supporters.

Ahmed Mohamed talks about being arrested at Irving school over clock

Obama tweets support

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President Obama tweets support for Mohamed.

15 Sep, 2015

Arrested

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Mohamed is arrested after taking a homemade clock to school. The clock — a circuit board with a power supply wired to a digital display — is confiscated during English class because the alarm kept beeping.

She was like, it looks like a bomb. It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.

He is taken out of class by the principal and questioned by five police officers who demand to know his intentions and why he brought the device into school.

They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb? I told them no, I was trying to make a clock. He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me’.

They take him to a juvenile detention center. He is suspended from school and may still face charges of making a hoax bomb. Mohamed’s father, who emigrated from Sudan:

He just wants to invent good things for mankind. But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.