Ahmed Mohamed Seeking $15 Million in Damages

Dawkins took to Twitter on Tuesday, in reaction to the news that Mohamed’s family was demanding million in damages and an apology from Irving, Texas, officials over the way the 14-year-old was treated. Mohamed is the teenage from Texas whose projects were gravely mistaken for a bomb.

In an interview with the Dallas Morning News back in September, Mohamed explained why the incident – which included him getting handcuffed and interrogated by police who allegedly withheld his right to have a parent or lawyer present – was so humiliating.

Dawkins said earlier he was “fed up” with people who defended Ahmed on the grounds “he’s only a kid”, and repeated his allegation that the teenager conducted a “scam”, calling him “clock hoax boy”.

The evolutionary biologist posted a link to a news story with a photo of a child Islamic State recruit beheading a prisoner.

The tweet provoked an even greater backlash.

Dawkins clarified his tweet a while later, after several social media posters expressed outrage at the comparison.

“Am I missing your point?” tweeted Lisajane Ellis.

“I used to look up to you”. Your books opened my mind w I was a kid.

Many accused Dawkins, an outspoken critic of Islam, of having an anti-Muslim bias for drawing the comparison. “They just decided not to do it”. “C’mon Richard, surely you can see how this looks?” tweeted Aaron San Filippo.

Dawkins was criticised on Twitter for comparing Mohamed to an ISIS child fighter. He also said that the child terrorist was “brainwashed by adults” and that another example of the wrongness of the “only a kid” sentiment would be that of the two 10-year-old boys who tortured and then murdered 2-year-old James Bulger in England. “The numpties (fools) thought I was accusing Muslims of being Nazis!” he wrote.

A former Dawkins admirer responded in disgust to the scientist’s analogy.