It’s Monday. It’s cold out. The Muslims are angry. An innocent infidel is in danger. Just another day in the world neighborhood.
From the BBC:
Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an “innocent mistake” by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.
Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.
A spokesman from the British Embassy in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, said it was unclear whether she had been charged.
Embassy officials are expected to visit Ms Gibbons in custody later.
“We are in contact with the authorities here and they have visited the teacher and she is in a good condition,” an embassy spokesman said.
The spokesman said the naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country.
“This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it,” he said.
‘Very sensitive’
The BBC’s correspondent Amber Henshaw said Ms Gibbons’ punishment could be up to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
The school has been closed until January for fear of reprisals.
Fellow teachers at Khartoum’s Unity High School told Reuters news agency they feared for Ms Gibbons’ safety after receiving reports that men had started gathering outside the police station where she was being held.
The school’s director, Robert Boulos, said: “This is a very sensitive issue. We are very worried about her safety.
“This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam.”
Oh, no. God forbid any of us insult the biggest lie in history. It might get us killed by the “gentle” followers of the ‘Religion of Peace.’
I’m so “very sensitive” about Islam (in a negative way) that I’m like a severed nerve ending. Ouch. Ouch. OUCH! But what do my feelings matter. I’m just a humble infidel.
Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was following a British national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and this year’s topic was the bear.
Ms Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he said.
“They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad,” Mr Boulos said, adding that she then had the children vote on a name.
Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name.
No kidding?
Mr Boulos said each child was then allowed to take the bear home at weekends and told to write a diary about what they did with it.
He said the children’s entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a message which read, “My name is Muhammad.”
Book seized
The bear itself was not marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added.
It is seen as an insult to Islam to attempt to make an image of the Prophet Muhammad.
It’s seen as an insult by me to watch this disease of a cult dominate all our psyches each and every day.
Come and get me.
Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was arrested on Sunday at her home inside the school premises after a number of parents complained to Sudan’s Ministry of Education.
I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote
Muslim colleague in SudanHe said police had seized the book and asked to interview the girl who owned the bear.
The country’s state-controlled Sudanese Media Centre reported that charges were being prepared “under article 125 of the criminal law” which covers insults against faith and religion.
No-one at the ministries of education or justice was available for comment.
Mr Boulos told the BBC he was confident she would not face a jail sentence.
“So far there is not any formal accusation, you see, so it wouldn’t reach that, it will be just a fine. We are struggling with the authorities and our advocates to just release her, and then the whole case will be dismissed,” he said.
One Muslim teacher at the independent school for Christian and Muslim children, who has a child in Ms Gibbons’ class, said she had not found the project offensive.
“I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote,” the teacher said.
In Liverpool, a family spokeswoman said Ms Gibbons’ grown children, John and Jessica - both believed to be in their 20s - were not commenting on her arrest.
“I have spoken with her children and they do not want to say anything and aggravate the situation over there,” she said.
Smart kids. They still value their lives. Give them a few more years of Qur’an study to fix that, but by that point they will be the ones arresting more infidels.
Friends and neighbours of Ms Gibbons expressed their worry for the former deputy headteacher and respected educator who moved to Sudan in July.
“Gillian is a very talented and able teacher and she was extremely popular with the pupils at this school,” said Gillian Jones, Ms Gibbons former colleague at Dovecot Primary School in suburban Aigburth.
Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad printed in several European newspapers sparked violent protests around the world in 2006.
Ah, yes, just another day in the neighborhood called Planet Earth. Thanks, Muhammad!
Podcasts Archive
Well said! Green Ink has a great cartoon of a MoTeddy, THAT would get the European Muzzies rioting too.
This would make a wonderful Ramadan gift. A New Dark Age is Dawning has a link to them for sale at the Cafe Press store.
Calling these ignorant freaks in Sudan human garbage is just too kind. Oh so peaceful, effin SICK animals…
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
give a pig a prophet’s name
glorify the godly swine
and thank him for his bacon
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
outlaw all teddy bears
before some little kids
try to honor a prophet
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
pay your teachers with DEATH
for visiting to help out
your ungrateful country
http://citizenwarrior2.blogspot.com/
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
.
“Enlightened”…..? Explain to me which part of Islam makes you enlightened, my good man. Is it the part where you kill a woman for being the victim of a rape? Wait, that’s right…SHE dishonors her family by being raped, rather than the scum who raped her being the dishonorable one.
Maybe it is the oppression you force on women by veiling them from head to toe while the man wears shorts and a t-shirt in 100 degree weather.
I know….enlightenment comes with issuing a death edict toward anyone whose opinion is different than yours, right?
I think someone has their head buried deep in either the desert sand or up their collective anuses.
You go ahead and stick around as long as you like. When the time comes and we have had our fill of you, we will escort you to the door and give you the boot into the street like all of the other extremists in history. Islam does not equal enlightenment when extremism is the end result.
As for the Muslim world that supposedly does not subscribe to extremism, YOU ARE JUST AS GUILTY AS THE EXTREMISTS. If the words they speak don’t represent your beliefs, then speak up!! All your silence means to me is that you condone what they say.
coldjoint? You must be searching for that ever-elusive “moderate Muslim”. It’s kind of like a unicorn. ; )
a 54 year old woman threatens the foundation of islam. get a life you whining stupid, brainwashed idiots. better yet kill the children and their parents so none of this teddy bear crap spreads through islam. time to nip this in the bud. this is so sad it borders on comical, but i’m not laughing. maybe things this ridiculous are part of the grander scheme of jihad. these people can not be trusted. still apoligists say hardly any muslims feel this way. really? where the hell are they?
Our ancients’ pasts have enlightened countries by the balls, to be perfectly frank.
This is a serene - and by serene, I mean calmly and smoothly apparent - case of why humanity will never reach true enlightenment.
To simplifyy the issue to a room full of people representing the billions on this planet, there will always be those more interested in their own power, or preoccupied with their own freedom from responsibility, than those seeking to overcome less intelligent ideals. The “enlightened” will never be free from actually having to kill those who don’t want to be free.
And if, on the off chance, our entire planet could reach a relative state of enlightenment at once, it will never last - because things never last, people never last, dreams never last, and ideals, however true, must come and go as the tides of generational ignorance pervade society time and time again.
The example of the teacher is one of the most blatant examples of the ‘unenlightened’ attacking the ‘enlightened,’ while the rest of us look on because we don’t want to dirty our hands actually (1) acknowledging that not Everyone in the world is enlightened and (2) they can’t be dispelled without armed agression and severe shedding of blood.
We’re obviously too ‘enlightened’ to consider warfare for any other purpose but securing our own financial security, as opposed to direct aggression to preseve - at knife’s point - the very nature of society that allows humanity to live in harmony at all.
A true society that seeks peace must MAKE PEACE with its own humanity - the need for self-discipline of our carnal nature and the freedom of forgiveness for when we fail to control it. Often we polarize ourselves into hating the failures or worshipping them, rather than simply recognizing that we’re all human.
To combat Islam - the hate of failure, however the judgement of that failure dictated - must be swift and severe. It must battle on the fields of war and in the halls of politick.
We, those who see the danger in Islam and radicalism in all forms (Islam as a whole radical), are dumbfounded at the mass’ desire to appease before gasping in shock at dangers we had been loudly warning them of all along.
Lost cause? No.
Requires patience?
Pull up a chair. We’re going to be here awhile.
JC
News Flash: Today the local mosque-goers are out in the streets calling for the teachers death. Savages! But what do we expect, at least they’re predictable. Wise man once say, “Don’t accept a dinner invitation from cannibals and not expect to be the main course.”