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August 29, 2008 12:52:31 CDT

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Teacher Held for Teddy Bear Blasphemy

Posted Nov 26, 07 7:25 CST in World 

(Newser) – A UK teacher in Sudan may get 40 lashes and a 6-month sentence over a teddy bear named "Mohammed," the Telegraph reports. Sudanese cops nabbed Gillian Gibbons yesterday for blasphemy after she let her elementary school kids name the bear after Islam's prophet. School director Robert Boulos, who has closed the school for fear of attacks, said Gibbons used the bear as a teaching tool.

Parents reportedly grumbled to Sudanese officials when they heard about it. Now the UK is trying to intervene, and an angry mob has gathered outside the station where Gibbons is held. "We are very worried about the kind of conditions she is subjected to," said one of Gibbons' former neighbors. "Being held in a police cell in Khartoum must be a horrendous experience."

Source Daily Telegraph (UK)

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Unity High School in Khartoum, Sudan. Seen from the outside, this is where Gillian Gibbons was teaching until the prophet-bear debacle.   (Unity High School)
A Sudanese boy looks on during a protest supporting Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese national who was arrested by the U.S. military while working for Al jazeera during the invasion of Afghanistan...   (Associated Press)
A teddy bear, hopefully not named Mohammed.   (shutter stock)
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Sudan  • Islamic Sharia law  • blasphemy  • Khartoum


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