A Texas teenager who gained national attention after he was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school is moving to Qatar with his family to continue his education.
Ahmed Mohamed has accepted a scholarship from Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, or QF, his family said.
They thanked all the people and places that reached out in support after the “unfortunate incident of Ahmed’s arrest.” The family visited QF this month.
“Qatar was a cool place to visit. I loved the city of Doha because it’s so modern. I saw so many amazing schools there, many of them campuses of famous American universities. The teachers were great. I think I will learn a lot and have fun, too,” Ahmed said in the statement.
In the hours after his arrest last month, #IStandWithAhmed was trending worldwide on Twitter, with critics alleging that Ahmed, 14, was the victim of religious profiling. He is Muslim.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Ahmed said he was pulled out of class at MacArthur High School by his principal and five police officers and taken to a room where he was questioned for about an hour and a half.
He said he asked the adults if he could call his parents.
“They told me ‘No, you can’t call your parents,'” Ahmed said. “‘You’re in the middle of an interrogation at the moment.’ They asked me a couple of times, ‘Is it a bomb?’ and I answered a couple of times, ‘It’s a clock.'”
“I felt like I was a criminal,” the teenager said. “I felt like I was a terrorist. I felt like all the names I was called.”
