A British teacher has been detained in Sudan after her 7-year-old students called a teddy bear Mohammad. Gillian Gibbons, 54, was also charged with inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs. The teacher will appear before a Sudanese court and if convicted, she could face 40 lashes, a fine, or one year in jail.
The day before these charges were brought, the British ambassador to the United Nations asked the Security Council to address warrants against a Sudanese official and a militia leader accused of war crimes in Darfur, a troubled region of western Sudan where more than 200,000 people have died. Some Sudanese analysts wondered if charges had been filed against the teacher in retaliation.
A 7-year-old Sudanese student on Tuesday defended his British teacher saying he had chosen to call a teddy bear Mohammad after his own name.
"The teacher asked me what I wanted to call the teddy," the boy said shyly. "I said Mohammad. I named it after my name," he added.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a statement released in London: "This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense."
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2 comments:
pis pis pis pis...
shame... how people regard religion as a little political device they can manipulate this way and that.. oh well. politics.
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