Teacher arrested for Teddy Bear name

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

While you guys congratulate yourselves on how enlightened you are and go about your erudite debate...don't forget the victim here. A Brithsh school teacher trying to educate Sudan's children...makes me sick.

 

Welcome to the 7th century.

 

Sudan charges teacher for teddy bear name

 

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

Wed Nov 28, 3:43 PM ET

 

Sudan charged a British teacher Wednesday with inciting religious hatred after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, an offense that could subject her to 40 lashes, the Justice Ministry said.

 

The charge against Gillian Gibbons was sure to heighten tensions between Sudan and Britain. In London, Foreign Secretary David Miliband urgently summoned the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the case, the British government said.

 

Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after some of her pupils' parents complained, accusing her of naming the bear after Islam's prophet. Muhammad is a common name among Muslim men, but giving the prophet's name to an animal would be seen as insulting by many Muslims.

 

Prosecutor General Salah Eddin Abu Zaid said Gibbons was charged under article 125 of the Sudanese legal code and her case would be referred to court Thursday.

 

If convicted, she faces up to 40 lashes, six months and prison and a fine, said Abdul Daem Zumrawi, the Justice Ministry's undersecretary.

 

"What will be applied is (at) the discretionary power of the judge to issue the verdict," he was quoted as saying by the official Sudanese News Agency.

 

The meeting between Miliband and Ambassador Omer Mohammed Ahmed Siddig would take place as soon as possible, according to the British Foreign Office.

 

"We are surprised and disappointed by this development and the Foreign Secretary will summon as a matter of urgency the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the matter further," said Michael Ellam, a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office.

 

Miliband would ask the "for the rationale behind the charges and a sense of what the next steps might be" amid an escalating diplomatic dispute in the case, he said.

 

"We will consider our response in the light of that," Ellam said.

 

The Gibbons family declined to speak with The Associated Press, saying the British government had advised them not to comment to the media.

 

In Khartoum, the British Embassy said diplomats had been allowed to visit Gibbons on Wednesday. "She said she was being well-treated and that she was OK," said embassy spokesman Omar Daair.

 

Gibbons was teaching her pupils, who are around age 7, about animals and asked one of them to bring in her teddy bear, said Robert Boulos, a spokesman for Unity High School in Khartoum. She asked the students to pick names for it and they proposed Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and in September, the pupils voted to name it Muhammad, he said.

 

Each child was allowed to take the bear home on weekends and write a diary about what they did with it. The diary entries were collected in a book with the bear's picture on the cover, labeled, "My Name is Muhammad," he said. The bear itself was never labeled with the name, he added.

 

The Unity High School, a private English-language school with elementary to high school levels, was founded by Christian groups, but 90 percent of its students are Muslim, mostly from upper-class Sudanese families.

 

Several Sudanese newspapers ran a statement Tuesday reportedly from the school, saying the administration "offers an official apology to the students and their families and all Muslims for what came from an individual initiative." It said Gibbons had been "removed from her work at the school."

 

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday played down the significance of the case, calling it "isolated despite our condemnation and rejection of it."

 

Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadeq said it was an incidence of a "teacher's misconduct against the Islamic faith" but noted the school's apology.

 

The statement from the school in newspapers called it a "misunderstanding." It underlined the school's "deep respect for the heavenly religions" and for the "beliefs of Muslims and their rituals."

 

Although Khartoum officials played down the case and said it was an isolated incident, Sudan's top clerics said in a statement Wednesday that the full measure of the law should be applied against Gibbons, calling the incident part of a broader Western "plot" against Islam.

 

Northern Sudan's legal system is based on Islam's Sharia law, which harshly punishes blasphemy. Any depiction of the prophet is forbidden in Islam, for fear it would provoke idolatry. Caricatures of Muhammad in some European media last year sparked riots in several Muslim countries.

 

The Sudanese clerics said this was blasphemy and believed it was intentional.

 

"What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam," the Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas said the statement.

 

"It is part of the campaign of the so-called war against terrorism and the intense media campaign against Islam," they said.

 

Although an earlier report had suggested that only one parent had complained, the clergy statement Wednesday said that several had complained.

 

There were widespread calls in Britain for Gibbons' release. The Muslim Council of Britain urged the Sudanese government to intervene.

 

___

[blindgonzo]

Nope, I believe the Big Bang theory is probably pretty much heading in the right direction. There are a lot of pieces missing, and there's a lot of big things about nature that we don't understand, but it seems sound to me. I have no problem with science.

 

My whole point about not having to explain God's origin, is that it's part of his nature, if that's what you believe - that he's eternal. If you believe you have to start somewhere, and I believe you do, then that's where I begin.

 

oh ok. thanks for clarifying! for now, we shall just have to agree to disagree about God's origin though.

[Sky God]

I used the windex bottle to give the "skygod" effect.

 

[bjorn_skurj]

I am always thinking of You, O Lord. Thanks for healing my car at Dunkin' Donuts before.

[Atticus]

While you guys congratulate yourselves on how enlightened you are and go about your erudite debate...don't forget the victim here. A Brithsh school teacher trying to educate Sudan's children...makes me sick.

 

wrong thread

 

wait--

[Reni]

hey maybe that British schoolteacher is just spreading imperialist oppression and Western cultural hegemony.

 

[EL the Famous]

While you guys congratulate yourselves on how enlightened you are and go about your erudite debate...

 

[Good Old Neon]

Weren't you originally claiming that everything in the Bible was disproved by science? Now you're arguing that all the true parts are already supported by science. A) Why is that a problem? You're the one arguing that science and religion are incompatible. None of the skygod worshipers here have made such a claim. B ) I'm pretty sure that they didn't have evolutionary psychology 2,000 years ago.

 

The bible

[Spawn's dad]

With hatred in ones heart, you can't see the pit of fire actually being in the here and now?

 

I'm still wondering how we're to be more like the bononbos without a system in place to guide us towards something that isn't in our inherent nature. And if there is such a system, or lack thereof, by what means will we remove the present systems. What penalties would need to be in place for those who refuse to comply? I'm voting for concentration camps.

[Good Old Neon]

With hatred in ones heart, you can't see the pit of fire actually being in the here and now?

 

I'm still wondering how we're to be more like the bononbos without a system in place to guide us towards something that isn't in our inherent nature. And if there is such a system, or lack thereof, by what means will we remove the present systems. What penalties would need to be in place for those who refuse to comply? I'm voting for concentration camps.

 

We have a system in place, laws

[M. (hristine]

Give you enough rope and you shoot yourself in the foot every time.

 

Wholesale or individual murder most often occurs for these reasons: POWER or PASSION. It is the detachment from these that spiritual practice exercises.

 

I would argue that the desire for power and passionate response is indeed inherent in human nature, and is the genesis of most conflict. Not religion.

[Spawn's dad]

Give you enough rope and you shoot yourself in the foot every time.

 

mixed metaphors aside

 

religion gets in trouble when people desire power. the desire for power is not an inherent aspect of the spiritual path, but a corruption of it.

[Good Old Neon]

Give you enough rope and you shoot yourself in the foot every time.

 

Wholesale or individual murder most often occurs for these reasons: POWER or PASSION. It is the detachment from these that spiritual practice exercises.

 

I would argue that the desire for power and passionate response is indeed inherent in human nature, and is the genesis of most conflict. Not religion.

 

That may be the intent, but in practice, it is not always the outcome. Take the Middle East for example, the centuries old conflicts between the different groups, tribes, whatever, have at that their core a common denominator

[M. (hristine]

mixed metaphors aside

I meant to do that.

[Spawn's dad]

That may be the intent, but in practice, it is not always the outcome. Take the Middle East for example, the centuries old conflicts between the different groups, tribes, whatever, have at that their core a common denominator

[Spawn's dad]

That may be the intent, but in practice, it is not always the outcome. Take the Middle East for example, the centuries old conflicts between the different groups, tribes, whatever, have at that their core a common denominator

[M. (hristine]

That may be the intent, but in practice, it is not always the outcome. Take the Middle East for example, the centuries old conflicts between the different groups, tribes, whatever, have at that their core a common denominator

[Good Old Neon]

they're fighting over land, corrupting the letter of their religion.

 

 

Marginal cases? You may want to revisit your history books, as our entire history is awash in religious based conflicts

[Spawn's dad]

and conflicts over land, water, gold, and slavery. people fight, thus us not being inherently altruistic.

 

I think you're the one in need of a history class (while I point out you making things personal) and

a philosphy class.

[Good Old Neon]

We can CALL it whatever we want. The conflict still arises out of CULTURE not spirituality. The Middle East disputes are about land (power) and tribalism (passion). "Religion" is a convenient phrase. I guarantee that spiritual practice is not at the heart of the centuries old conflicts there.

 

And what of the conflict and animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland

[Spawn's dad]

actually that wasn't what I suggested but I'm all done here for now. I have to work and since you have several hundred posts on the subject and having yet been able to cobble together an argument that seems to have swayed anyone I'll check in later.

[Good Old Neon]

and conflicts over land, water, gold, and slavery. people fight, thus us not being inherently altruistic.

 

I think you're the one in need of a history class (while I point out you making things personal) and

a philosphy class.

 

I wasn

[ikol]

The bible

[EL the Famous]

I

[Good Old Neon]

Which is more in line with human nature.

 

Well, we were created in gods image after all. So, if we are selfish and violent, what does that say about god?