Briton arrested after her young students named a teddy bear ‘Mohammad’
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudanese authorities began questioning a British teacher on Tuesday, one day after she was arrested for insulting Islam after her young students named a teddy bear “Mohammad.”
Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher at the Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested on Sunday after complaints from parents.
“She has been transferred for questioning,” said one police official in the station where she was being held.
The official said a decision was possible on Tuesday from the investigating authorities as to whether charges would be brought against Gibbons. If convicted of insulting Islam, she could be sentenced to 40 lashes, six months in prison or a fine, lawyers said.In good spirits
Teachers at the school said Gibbons had asked her class of 7-year-olds to choose their favorite name for the teddy bear and 20 of the 23 had voted for Mohammad.
Unity director Robert Boulos had said the school would be closed until January because he was afraid of reprisals in mainly Muslim Khartoum.
In 2005 a Sudanese paper was closed for three months and its editor arrested for reprinting articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammad, a move which prompted angry protests.
Al-Wifaq editor Mohamed Taha was later abducted from his home by armed men and beheaded.
A British embassy official said Gibbons was in good spirits and school officials said they were optimistic she would be released.
Sudan’s justice minister declined to immediately comment.
It’s fucked up, but that’s a fucked up part of the world. If you’re going to work there you better realize how zealously they take Islam.
Reminds me of that American kid from several years ago who got busted for vandalism in some other country and there was all kinds of outrage that the punishment was 10 lashings. If you’re going to go to another country, you better know their laws and punishments.
He was one of ten prisoners flogged that day. In the caning room he was stripped naked. He bent over and his arms and legs were fastened to an H-shaped trestle by straps. A protective covering was placed over his kidneys. A prison official, a medical officer and the caner were the only ones present. The caner wound up and, using his full body weight, struck with the 13mm-thick rattan rod, which had been soaked overnight to prevent it from splitting. Each stroke on Fay’s exposed buttocks came about half a minute apart. It was over in minutes. After the fourth and final stroke, say Singapore officials, Fay shook hands with his caner and insisted on walking back to his cell unaided. He wanted to act like a man.
Clinton even asked them not to whack him, so they reduced it from 6 to 4 thwacks.
Thanks for looking that up. I was searching under lashing and couldn’t find it.
But yeah, kid got what he deserved.
This one is a little harder for me to say that, especially given my athiest views, but bottom line is she’s in a country that marries church and state, and broke one of their religious laws.
