Less than 24 hours after Ahmed Mohamed met President Obama, his family decided it’s time to leave America for good.
The 14-year-old Texas boy who was arrested for bringing to school a homemade clock that authorities said resembled a bomb will soon be living in Qatar.
“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,” the family said in a press release Tuesday.
Anthony Bond, a close family friend and the founder of the Irving, Texas chapter of the NAACP said the family made the decision to leave the U.S. within the last 24 hours. They have spent those hours in Washington, D.C. where Ahmed has been on a mini-press tour in anticipation of his visit to the White House.
President Obama personally invited the teen after his arrest last month, reaching out to him via Twitter. The president was one of many who spoke out about the implications of a 14-year-old Muslim boy accused of building a bomb, put in handcuffs and pulled out a school. Once it was discovered that the “bomb” was only a digital clock the young innovator built himself, the Irving Police said they would not be charging Ahmed with any crime.
But the spark had already been lit; Ahmed’s story went viral, with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed bringing out legions of supporters including Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Tweets, thinkpieces and day-time TV segments were dedicated to dissecting how Ahmed’s situation typified racism and Islamaphobia in America.
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