very innocent teacher who went to teach the ignorant muslims and their retarded children is now being sacrificed to stupidity. the muslims feel threatened by such a sweet looking innocent woman. f.u.c.k mohammed.
MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE, AND NOW STUPID MUSLIMS ARE PISSED OFF BECAUSE MOHAMMED IS A DAMN TEDDY BEAR. I HATE MUSLIMS AND I HATE ISLAM .I WILL NEVER EVER STOP SPEAKING AGAINST THE SATANIC CRAP CALLED ISLAM.
British teacher arrives at Sudan court
3 hours ago
KHARTOUM (AFP) — A British teacher arrived at a Sudanese court on Thursday after being charged with insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred by allowing pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed.
Mother of two, Gillian Gibbons, 54, charged on Wednesday in a case threatening to spark a major diplomatic row with Britain, arrived at the criminal court in Khartoum in a prison van.
Journalists and photographers were prevented from getting close or taking pictures as the van drove around the back of the courthouse.
The private school teacher has been in police custody for four days in Khartoum, where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine. Sudanese officials say a judge will determine the severity of the sentence.
British embassy officials were heading to the court, where Gibbons was expected to appear with her lawyer shortly after her arrival. Officials said they understood that her case could go straight to a trial or that the court could set a date for later proceedings.
Gibbons was arrested on Sunday after parents at the private English school where she had taught for less than a term, complained that in allowing primary school children to name a cuddly toy Mohammed, she had insulted Muslims.
As a diplomatic row brewed, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was likely to summon the Sudanese ambassador to London for urgent talks at the Foreign Office on Thursday, a spokesman said.
Miliband wants an explanation on the decision to charge Gibbons over letting pupils call the bear Mohammed -- a popular boys' name in Muslim countries but also the same name of the prophet and founder of Islam.
The purpose of the meeting was "so we can get a clear explanation for the rationale behind the charges and a sense of what the next steps might be," a spokesman said. "We will consider our response in the light of that."
The United States, Britain's closest ally and a country that imposes economic sanctions on the Sudanese government, also voiced concern.
"We are following the situation of the British teacher closely and with concern," the US State Department said in a statement. "We understand the British government is pursuing this with the Sudanese government directly."
Although the affair has aroused rather scant attention in the Sudanese press, the independent English-language newspaper The Citizen published a stinging editorial declaring that Gibbons deserved better justice.
The education ministry, to which parents at the Unity High School complained, was staffed with "Islamic fundamentalists" and "another fanatic" was likely to hear her case in court, the newspaper wrote.
"Gibbons's crime reflects what non-Muslims living in northern Sudan go through everyday. Women caught brewing local beverages... meant for traditional occasions are detained, flogged, fined and imprisoned.
"And men found drinking alcohols are flogged publicly, a form of humiliation," said the newspaper.
The teacher, who has been visited by British consular officials and her lawyer, has said she is being treated well but that she never meant to cause offence over the bear-naming exercise in September.
The Akhbar al-Youm newspaper published a letter from Gibbons addressed to parents on school notepaper asking families to take the classroom bear called Mohammed home in order to fill out a diary entry as part of a school project.
The Committee of Ulemas in Sudan denounced Gibbons' behaviour and demanded a full investigation into who was responsible and that the education ministry do more to protect Muslim pupils.
The ministry is to conduct an inquiry into the Christian-run Unity High School to determine whether it was guilty of covering-up the incident, which happened several weeks ago.