An update on this story. "Bid to stop whipping over toy bear," from CNN (thanks to Mackie):
LONDON, England (CNN) -- UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday that officials were working to secure the early release of a British teacher who faces being whipped in Sudan after she allowed her class to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."Gillian Gibbons, 54, has been accused of blasphemy and is being held by police in the capital Khartoum, Kirsty Saunders, British Foreign Office spokeswoman told CNN.
Police arrested the school teacher after she asked her class of seven-year-olds to come up with a name for the toy as part of a school project, according to widespread media reports.
Parents of students at the Unity High School in Khartoum informed the authorities and Gibbons was taken into custody Sunday, Saunders told CNN.
So far Gibbons has yet to be charged with any offense, however, under Sudanese law, insulting Islam is punishable with 40 lashes, a jail term of up to six months or a fine, she said.
However, a Sudanese official told CNN that if police decided that Gibbons had acted in good faith, she would most likely be spared punishment.
"If the intentions are good, definitely she will be absolved and will be cautioned not to repeat this thing again," Mutrif Siddig, Sudan's under secretary for foreign affairs, said.[...]
According to a report in The Times newspaper, Gibbons had asked the children to pick their favorite name for the new class mascot, which she was using to aid lessons about animals and their habitats.
A member of the Sudanese government told CNN Muslim parents at the school informed the authorities after considering that her actions were offensive to their faith.
Mutrif Siddig, Sudan's under secretary for foreign affairs, said: "To give the name of Mohammed to this teddy bear, it was considered as insult by some parents. And this school is mixed, it is not all Christian students."[...]
Separately, CNN contacted a member of staff, who confirmed the school had been shut down temporarily as a result of the incident involving Gibbons. He refused to give his name and said no other members of staff were available.
I'm beginning to see that the Islamaniacs are basically polytheists. They have elevated Mo to pretty much the same status as their god-even though they say he's a prophet they're always rioting and killing over insults to him. Shouldn't they punish themselves with some of that old time sharia? They complain that us apes and pigs deserve punishment for polytheism so why do they get off scot free?
250 years ago we sent our Navy to pound the crap out of anywhere we needed to, to end the evil of slavery.
Now we send begging emails asking if they'd please not flog our citizens for misnaming a teddy.
The KIDS named that bear, not the teacher.
Go after the parents for raising bad muslim kids.
When this woman goes back to England her troubles will continue. Someone should be anticipating that this woman will be targeted by muslims back home. And she will never be able to work around muslims again.
Is Gordan Brown going to protect her?
Gordon Brown won't sit on the same table with Robert Mugabe, but has no problems in declaring that islam is innocent of islamic violence.
Good priorities you have there. Gordie man.
oh, where is the spirit of old Albion?
"why do they get off scot free?"
Because they are Muslims, they are the exception to every rule that applies to everyone else.
How about all those criminals in jail who are muhammeds? so a cute little teddy bear called muhammed offends muslims but criminal muhammeds don't? I hope this teaches a lesson to all western teachers not to help any muslim country. it's just not worth it.
Washington Times coverage:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/FOREIGN/111270041/1001
The school is not standing up in defense of their teacher:
"The Sudanese Media Center (SMC), a news agency close to the country's intelligence services, quoted the school as apologizing and purportedly claiming the teacher had been fired.
The school apologized officially to the students, families and all Muslims for an individual act that does not represent the policy of the school, or its deep respect for Muslims and their faith," SMC quoted the school as saying."
Speaking of guys named Mo:
"Muhammad is the second most popular name for baby boys in Britain, according to the Times of London — provided all 14 different spellings of the prophet's name are included.
It is expected to overtake Jack as No. 1 by the end of the year, the newspaper said."
--
CT Yank
I know, why don't we let those parents and their offspring emigrate to the West. They're just the sort of tolerant forward looking people we want, think of the benefit.
"Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead."
Something like that. A lot more like that.
My pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig (Mohammed) and my cat (Allah) think this is outrageous. So does my Rottweiler (Jesus)
;o)
"If the intentions are good, definitely she will be absolved and will be cautioned not to repeat..."
IF the intentions are good? What other choice is there?
Here is a teacher who goes off to Sudan to teach in a country that does not appreciate the effort. Does Great Britian have a surplus of teachers? Did she go because the pay is higher or because she needs to feel good about herself in an obscure way? She went off to a country where she is considered a filthy infidel and apparently treated as such.
Conversely, if this lady went as a condition of employment, then her employers are responsible; they should be flogged.
Joshua,
I declare jihad on you for the rottweiler part. Prepare to die!!
This is blasphemy.
Unless of course the Teddy bear is a murderer, rapist and pedophile.
If it is not the case, then our apologies to Teddy bears everywhere.
Crusader; what've you got against rottweilers? ;)
It is time for Westerners to stop supporting these savage Islamic societies. With the support of us infidels who provide professionals and teach Muslim kids Western skills, these Muslim countries would have no wealth producing capacities. People need to wake up and hear what many Muslims are saying, that we are their enemies and they intend to destroy us and our liberal freedoms.
Islam is a declaration of war against everything that is not Islamic. It's peace is through assimilation, however resistance is not futile.
Osama Bin Laden understood quite well, that to destroy a civilization you must undermine its economy and its will. George Bush spent 1 Trillion on a stupid hot war when he should be fighting a cold war. We must destroy Islamic illusions of their supremacy by first ending the oil age through a huge technological shift from oil. Then we must expand the internet through satellites so Western ideas and Christianity can be spread without defense through any part of the Islamic world. Third, we must use anti-communist cold war methods to undermine the spread of Islam at its weakest points.
These buggers are not that creative or that productive, they are however clever in exploiting western multiculturalism. We need to start being more clever and exposing their fascist theocratic impulses.
Their must be most stories like this Mohammad Bear story out there. If only their were a way to expose the widespread rape of non-Muslim house workers in Saudi Arabia. At some point, the media will understand what they are deal with in terms of the outcome of violent and exploitive Islamic theology.
ONE OF MY ROTTIES IS CALLED SHIVA
CHECK HIM OUT
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/03/no-burqas-here-march-27.html
AMNI SIBONBO IS A BONUS
"Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead."
Thanks Hugh, didn't know the story. Learn something new everyday.
Although TR gave into all of the demands and paid ransom. Is this the first record of American appeasement?
http://www.capitalcentury.com/1904.html
Man, the things Mohammedians get riled over. Riot and kill over cartoons, false rumors of flushed Korans, the Pope quoting a Byzantine emperor, infidels still breathing, it goes on and on with these petulant children.
Well, let me add one more. I've named my cats' litter boxes Mohammed and Khomeini. :-)
My house in the country has an outhouse we call Mecca. Anyone needs to take a crap they say, "I'm going to Mecca".
An excerpt from the article at Capitalcentury
Perdicaris quoted: "I go so far as to say that I do not regret having been his prisoner for some time," Perdicaris would later write. "He is not a bandit, not a murderer, but a patriot forced into acts of brigandage to save his native soil and his people from the yoke of tyranny."
Is this the first case of Perdicaris, er Stockholm Syndrome?
She deserves 400 lashings, not 40!
How dare she insult the wonderous and brutal muhhammad, who would no doubt, decree that she should be lashed.
What is a teddy bear doing in the classroom anyway, lash her now.
There is money to be made here. How about some enterprising company coming out with Muhammed Teddy Bears for Christmas. They can be complete with a turban and sword. Everyone will want one.
"Now we send begging emails asking if they'd please not flog our citizens for misnaming a teddy."
As for me, I didn't send any begging emails. It was threatening, in a diplomatic way. You know, it least it's doing something, I don't hear of either the UK or the U.S. gov. doing anything - to them it's business as usual. As a matter of fact, in such cases, the victim's consulate of embassy, usually, wash their hands of such things.
Yes, I agree that it's time for The People to start doing something themselves, instead of just sitting here.
HOWEVER, it's not as if the woman, the teacher, is not stupid! She IS stupid. What the hell is she doing in a war zone? It's like she has a death wish, for god's sake!
The woman is alone there. In a pig's eye am I going to be caught alive amidst barbarian hordes. Let their kiddies go without schooling! It's not as if you could teach anything of importance there - what with the parents constantly inserting themselves. Jeez!
If the intentions are good, definitely she will be absolved...
Ahh, intentions. This is the fulcrum used in hate crime legislation, all such laws being unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause.
If Hillary makes good on her pious promise to push for new hate crime laws around crimes against Moslems, including speech crimes, the skids will be greased for our downswoop into Americam Sharia. A multi-decade process, to be sure, but a permanent direction.
Also, when this gal does the inevitable mea culpa video broadcast on global television, will her abject weepy confession out Steve Centani Steve Centani himself? Will she claim she's reverted to Islam, or at least praise Islam?
Can't wait for the video to come out.
Unity High School and seven year olds go there? Either these mots (Mohammedan tots) are really smart or that school is really dumb.
"Ahh, intentions."
Isn't that what the road to hell is paved with? Or is that the road to Islam?
Isabella; there's a difference?!
Note carefully that the complaints ware made by parents and possibly another Mohammedan teacher.
The poor dears couldn't find a decent madrassa to teach their hamsters the ABCs. All those rainbow Christian schools with a Mohammedan cohort had better watch their backs, one never knows what will set the psycos among them off.
O Mohammedans dont flog us
dont abuse us or burn our flags
suffer us to our dhimmi selves
and you'll get it all by Allah's decree
A case for Robert Spencer:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_husain/2007/11/stop_supporting_bin_laden_geor.html
What on Earth did she expect? Gratitude for going to the Ar***ole of creation to teach the children of the most murderous cult in the planets history. I for one couldn't give a damn what happens to this stupid woman. Didn't she do any research before she went? Or even take the time to read a simple newspaper! God! the mind boggles!
Sheik yer'mami wrote:
"A case for Robert Spencer:"
A case? How about absolute validation of his existence.
Typical "Ed" Hussein, spending time criticizing Ms. Ali, but never going into that cave to show his lack of support for Bin Laden.
Their entire collective absurd argument is that the problem is "Islamism", which logically, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with and no foundation in Islam and the canonical Islamic texts themselves.
Uh-huh.
This is commonplace as an apologist excuse uttered from the overwhelming majority of useful "moderate" Muslims, that is, when they utter at all.
When I saw a picture of the woman, she looked like a typical naive multi-culti Baby Boomer moron. If that perception is right, and a picture was worth a thousand words, the whole episode is symbolic of the danger into which that personality type is putting those of us with clearer heads.
I have never been as sick of anything in my entire life as I am of Islam, not even Communism, and I just keep getting more sick of it every day.
Venividivici wrote: "I have never been as sick of anything in my entire life as I am of Islam, not even Communism, and I just keep getting more sick of it every day."
Actually, Soviet Communism (post-1953) looks pretty good by comparison. You couldn't criticize the government in public or publish a subversive poem but you could show up to work drunk and you got free or low cost health care. And Communism at least tried to be forward rather than backward-looking. They beat us to Earth orbit and Venus; Islamic states don't even have a space program let alone one capable of beating us in anything. In 1979 we were outraged that the Soviet Union was invading Afghanistan and threatening Iran. What were we thinking? With hindsight, we should have funded the Soviet occupation rather than the resistance. To my knowledge Soviets didn't blow up ancient artwork on purpose.
By the way, I share the Sudanese government's outrage. The teddy bear must be flogged at once!
jindle86 said
Not even close. In 1784, two U.S. ships, the Maria and the Dauphin, were taken prisoner by the Dey of Algeria. Then-Ambassador Thomas Jefferson was sent to negotiate the jizya ransom. He reported back to Congress on why the Muslims attacked U.S. cargo ships:
Can you imagine any current or future President giving such a clear and accurate description of Islamic ideology? Jefferson's discomfort at paying the ransom led him, during his Presidency, to try a different response to the Barbary pirates, namely the First Barbary War, the first U.S. war against the Islamic jihad, in 1801.
We've tried appeasement. We've tried retreat (Beirut 1983, Somalia 1993). We've tried secret negotiations (Iran 1986). We've tried propping up strongmen (Iran's Shah, Saudi Arabia's Royal Family, Iraq's Hussein). We've tried living-in-denial (present). It hasn't worked. They're still here, and they have the same goals and ideology that Jefferson described 200+ years ago.
Assalamau Laikum all,
I don't know what good intention really means. She is innocent in my view ...her mistake was that she did not have a good grasp of Islam...and that is unfortunate in a country like Sudan.
She could show her good intention by converting and embracing Islam....she could become a sort of a heroine then....it depends on what her agenda is.
More than likely however it is likely she will be secretly flown home to Britian....
I personally would like her to stay in Sudan, she can be a symbol or a template for kaffur status in muslim lands...this will be good experience for you all too....why?
she can be a template of how to integrate in muslims lands ...something that in all likelyhood you will experience in your lifetime in the heartlands of the West anyway.
Childrens must learn to respect and love Muhammed SAW, arguably the most influential man ever born.
Your childrens in particular ...need to learn this, ...good education starts at home....a lovely framed picture of the Kabah over the fireplace is usually a good start.
"Gordon Brown won't sit on the same table with Robert Mugabe, but has no problems in declaring that islam is innocent of islamic violence."
So you're saying he SHOULD sit with Mugabe?
"...said no other members of staff were available."
...just the way Muslims like to see schools that are not 100% Muslim run....
Maybe this is why Sudan is slaughtering the people of Darfur, maybe some little boy in Darfur named his teddy bear Mohammed. What gentle, spiritual people these Mohammedans!
Remember that these are people actively engaged in genocide. It is a wonder that they did not murder this poor woman outright. She should consider herself lucky to escape with a mere flogging.
Naseem,
My "childrens" will never learn or be taught to "love" your precious Mohammed. Our children will be playing with teddy bears long after the name Mohammed and the sickness of Islam are forgotten. It is muslims who must integrate with us in the west, not the other way around. What you dream of will not happen in a thousand lifetimes, let alone in my own.
Gee, this whole business surprises me. The naming of the toy bear "Mohammad" seems most appropriate, since Mohammad loved bears. He was a notorious tedophile.
Nasseem is stuck back on the farm. If only she/he traveled - the eyes would be opened to knew worlds. Then it would be a case of,
"How ya gonna get them back on the farm, after they've seen Pareeeeee."
Nas, you're talking to confirmed non-islamics. Don't waste your time.
but sudanese officials just said that this is a "storm in a teacup"? but they are the ones aggravating the situation by threatening to whip someone over naming a teddy bear "muhammed". gordon brown is saying nothing!
this is all political, "stay out of sudan, allow us to commit genocide or we will slaughter white europeans".
Thank you special_guest.
ebonystone:
"He was a notorious tedophile."
Oh, please, bear me. :)
Anyone who's looking for sanity in Islamia needs his head examined. As with 7Up and caffein, Islam "never had it (sanity, not caffein) and never will."
My earlier post turned out to be, sadly, quite prophetic. A lynch mob of "peaceful" muslims have gathered after their "religious services" and are demanding the woman be killed. She will be lucky to leave that wretched country alive. Good luck and Godspeed to her.