Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr has been sentenced to “death by crucifixion” by the Saudi authorities for protesting against the Saudi regime – Riaz Malik Hajjaji

Earlier this week, an American muslim teenager in Texas, Ahmed Mohammed was briefly arrested and detained by the police for making a clock and bringing it to school. The brief arrest and questioning is an act of discrimination and reflected the sheer stupidity of both the police and the High school administration and faculty member who raised an alarm about a home made clock.

Muslim rights groups, like the Saudi-funded CAIR (Council for Islamic Relations) immediately sprung in to action and ensured that the harassment meted out to Ahmed must not go unanswered. Within hours of the arrest and release, Ahmed Mohamed became a global celebrity. He was invited to the White House, recommended to MIT and glowingly praised by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. The ‪#‎IStandWithAhmed‬ hashtag trended globally.

No one should go through the brief harassment and discrimination that the muslim teenager, Ahmed went through. Unless of course, the muslim teenager happens to be the 17-year old Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr – a Saudi teenager arrested for simply protesting the brutal treatment handed out to his uncle – Sheikh Nimr. You see, Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr and his uncle Sheikh Nimr are human rights activists, Shias and dissidents in Saudi Arabia – a country to whose king American presidents and European heads of State literally bow down to.

While Ahmed was arrested and questioned for a couple of hours by the a group of discriminatory buffoons, Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr has been sentenced to “death by crucifixion” by the Saudi authorities in 2014. Just as muslim activists, including Shia Uncle Toms, were raging about the discrimination handed out to Ahmed, they were all typically silent, muted or token about the rejection of the appeal by Ali’s family in early September 2015.

No White House visits, no MIT referrals, no notes by Mark Zuckerberg for Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr. While one must condemn the discrimination and the buffoonery of those who briefly detained Ahmed Mohamed for making a clock, one must also question the double standards and the excessive valorisation of those who have made transformed Ahmed’s brief arrest into a global Cause Celebre.

Timing keeping has been going on since the last 4000 years and clock making experienced some of its most important innovations in the Thirteenth century. Like sliced bread and the wheel, Ahmed’s class room project was nothing out of the ordinary in the 21st century.

If MIT admissions and White House invites are being handed out for (re)making clocks, whats next. Will Sakina in Little Rock, Arkansas get admission to Stanford for making a loaf of multi grain bread? Will Faisal from Paris, Ohio get a White House buffet bash for coming to school with quite literally, a re-invention of the wheel! Probably not if Sakina happens to be a Shia muslim or Faisal happens to be an Ahmedi muslim.

And here is Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr who is literally facing a crucifixion for protesting the solitary confinement and death sentence handed out to his dissident uncle!

We all know when Crucifixions were previously “fashionable”! We all know how the Saudi-Turkey supported ISIS/FSA/Al Qaeda made Crucifixions “fashionable” in the areas of Syria and Iraq that have been occupied by them.

Hypocrisy Rules! The “spirit” of the Ommayad and Abbasid Caliphate lives on in Saudi Arabia and the various “revolutionaries” who receive their funding and support from such regimes. And those who quite literally bend over backwards and drag their countries into the mess created by bloodthirsty “revolutionaries” from Al Qaeda and ISIS and their various other nomenclatures like Free Syrian Army and Jabat Al Nusra.

Back to Texas, this Daily KOS (source listed in comments section) post raises some important points.

“But they didn’t evacuate the school, like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t call a bomb squad – like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t get as far away from him as possible, like you do when there’s a bomb.
Then they put him and the clock in an office: not like you do when there’s a bomb
Then they waited with him for the police to arrive, and then they put the clock in the same car as the police.
Then they took pictures of it. “

This post by Daily KOS highlights similar points.

The double standards on human rights issues and discrimination by what some have described as the “outrage industry” will (further) hurt the standing of American muslims in the long run. The hypocrisy of groups like the Saudi-funded CAIR has already had a counter effect on muslim interests.