Farhiyo Mohamed, right, mother of defendant Abdirahman Yasin Daud, leaves the federal courthouse in Minneapolis where her son was in June convicted of supporting terrorism. (Jim Gehrz/AP)
When Farhiyo Mohamed’s eldest son was convicted on charges of supporting the Islamic State, her world was upended. It wasn’t just that her son was headed to prison; her support system evaporated. Longtime friends in her tightly knit Somali community in Minneapolis stopped visiting, afraid they might be tainted by association.
“You call your friend, and your friend says, ‘Don’t call me because the FBI is following you,’ ” said Mohamed, a 40-year-old mother of five who escaped war in her home country, survived years in a Kenyan refugee camp and immigrated to the United States in 2003.
Her face had been plastered on the local news. One day this summer, during the height of her son’s trial, she was yelled at and called a “Muslim terrorist” during a trip to the post office.