The girl behind hashtag “#IStandWithAhmad”

"I thought it would just spread the word locally in Dallas, I didn't know it would get this big," she says. "It's amazing to see other people stand with us."

TEXAS - A 14-year-old student who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb. Ahmed brought the clock into MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, to show his engineering teacher. After another teacher saw it, police were summoned and Ahmed was interrogated, handcuffed and placed in juvenile detention. No charges were filed. The police later acknowledged that Ahmed's work was not dangerous

Amneh Jafari, a 23-year-old psychology student at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA), was the girl who instigated this campaign. She was surprised that such a young student was arrested in her state. Some of her friends have siblings at MacArthur, so she saw the story early on Twitter. She wanted to raise awareness of the story in the Dallas area, and adopted the hashtag to spread the word online.

Those on social media who feel that the event was unjust and racially motivated have used #IStandWithAhmed to show their support. The creater of this campaign, Amneh Jafari wrote, "If his name was John he would be labelled as a genius. Since its Ahmed he's labelled as a "suspect". #doublestandards #IStandWithAhmed."

This campaign gained momentum; more than 700,000 people have taken to Twitter to support Ahmed Mohamed. Her first tweet has been retweeted 501 times; almost twice the amount of followers she has on Twitter. She hoped to create a hashtag that would highlight the issue of racial discrimination, and was pleasantly surprised to find that people - not just Muslims - were echoing her support for Ahmed.

The campaign got media firestorm and spread, with Ahmed's family creating an official "Istandwithahmad" Twitter page. A number of prominent people have also declared their support for the young Muslim engineer.

As support pours in from across the world, #IStandWithAhmed continues to aware masses on social media. President Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Google have all used the hashtag as they invited Ahmed to meet with them - and encouraged him to keep building.

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