Richard Dawkins has drawn a comparison on Twitter between Ahmed Mohamed, the schoolboy who was arrested for building a clock, and a juvenile forced by Isis to behead victims.
The controversial tweet follows Dawkins questioning whether Ahmed, 14, "wanted to be arrested" in order to be portrayed as a victim of discrimination.
Ahmed was detained by police and suspended from his Texas school in September after a teacher thought a digital clock he made looked like a bomb.
His family have now demanded $15m in compensation as well as written apologies from the police chief and local mayor.
Referencing this recent news, Dawkins ridiculed those who point out Ahmed is a 15-year-old “kid”.
“Yes. A ‘kid’ old enough to sue for $15m those whom he hoaxed.”
The evolutionary biologist then wrote: “And how old is this ‘kid’?” linking to an IB Times article from July which shows a child, forced by Isis, preparing to decapitate a Syrian soldier.
The 74-year-old received a barrage of criticism following the tweet and proceeded to defend his earlier comments.
Saying he was “fed up” with people who defended the teenager on the grounds “he’s only a kid”, he repeated his opinion that Ahmed conducted a “scam”, calling him “clock hoax boy”.
Responding to criticism that the boys he compared were Muslim, Dawkins said: “It’s nothing to do with their being Muslims. The link is that both are young, yet not blameless.”
Earlier this week, during another discussion about Ahmed, Dawkins told the Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow he is not fazed by being accused of Islamophobia.
“I don’t care if he [Ahmed] was a Muslim. I’m always being accused of Islamophobia, that’s a non-word.”
The incident involving Ahmed received global attention in September after a social media hashtag ‘#IStandWithAhmed’ went viral.
President Barack Obama even waded in, publicly telling the teenager his clock was “cool” and Mark Zuckerberg invited him to tour Facebook’s head office.
