The Mohammed Teddy Bear Blasphemy update: Teacher awaits her fate
Update: Pupil tries to save teacher.
***
Photoshop credit: Rusty@JawaReport
Updating the latest Religion of Perpetual Outrage story I noted yesterday morning, British teacher Gillian Gibbons is waiting for a judge’s ruling on whether she will be tried for blasphemy because she allowed students at her Sudanese school to name their teddy bears after Mohammed. The Times of London follows up:
A British teacher facing 40 lashes in Sudan over a school teddy bear named Muhammad will discover today whether she will be charged with blasphemy.
Gillian Gibbons, 54, is being questioned for a second day by police in Khartoum on suspicion of insulting Islam’s prophet for allowing her seven-year-old pupils to give the toy the name of the prophet.
She was moved to a cell at the CID Criminal Police Exploration Bureau for further questioning. A file on the case will be sent to the department of public prosecutions and a judge should decide today whether she should be charged.
Robert Boulos, the director of Unity High School, the British school where Ms Gibbons worked, said that she was in “very high spirits and being treated well”.
Interrogated and jailed over a bunch of stuffed animals.
Where is Amnesty International?
***
Gillian Gibbons is not alone, of course. The routine threatening of infidels over “insults” continues apace. Take the case of Taslima Nasrin:
For more than a decade, the writer Taslima Nasrin has been fighting; fighting against the courts, fighting to be heard and fighting for her life. Last night, the Bangladeshi-born author was struggling again as violent protests in one city – and the purported threat of further violent protests in another – saw her shuttling across India to avoid angry Muslims who have accused her of insulting Islam.
“I have no place to go. India is my home and I would like to keep living in this country until I die,” the Sakharov Prize winner told The Hindu newspaper. “Here in this country, I have got the love and sympathy of the people for which I am grateful.”
On Thursday, Nasrin was forced to flee from the city of Kolkata where she has been living for the past two years, a day after Muslim activists led protests against her which resulted 50 people being injured and the imposition of a curfew. The All India Minorities Forum, a Muslim group, has demanded she be deported not just from Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, but from India.
But after one night in Jaipur, Rajasthan, the authorities there decided that Nasrin should also leave to avoid the risk of a repetition of violence. “She didn’t inform the government of Rajasthan before coming here and as she requires high security we asked her to leave,” the Home Minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, told reporters. As a result Nasrin was last night headed to Delhi, and presumably further controversy.
Controversy is nothing new for the writer. Having fled from Bangladesh in 1994, Nasrin has long been confronted by people who do not like what she has to say. After slipping out of Bangladesh where she was charged with blasphemy, the feminist writer spent many years in Sweden, before moving to Kolkata, a city with a long literary tradition. While her books have been translated into more than 20 languages, her first four autobiographical volumes remain banned in Bangladesh.
In India, opposition to the writer from a variety of groups has ebbed and flowed. At the centre of the controversy are comments she is alleged to have made to an Indian newspaper 13 years ago which quoted her as saying that alterations needed to be made to the Koran in order to provide women with more rights. A court also accused her of “deliberately and maliciously” hurting the feelings of Muslims as a result of her Bengali-language novel Lajja, or Shame, which focuses on riots between Muslims and Hindus.
Taliban apologist Yvonne Ridley was unavailable for comment.
***
Andy McCarthy makes a salient point:
Prompted by last Friday’s bombings in northern India (which killed 13 and wounded at least 80), Sadanand Dhume has a valuable op-ed in today’s WSJ (subscription req’d) about the appeasement of radical Islam that is typical in today’s democratic societies. He concludes:
India’s experience offers important lessons to other democracies struggling to integrate large Muslim populations. It highlights the folly of attempting to exempt Muslims from universal norms regarding women’s rights, freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. It reveals that democracy alone — when detached from bedrock democratic principles — offers no antidote to radical Islamic fervor.
ME: This has been one of my main complaints about the Democracy Project. The main cause of Islamic radicalism is Islamic doctrine, not lack of democracy. The doctrine at issue does not make all or even most Muslims into radicals; but as long as it is not reformed, it will always make some percentage of them radicals (in many places, a larger percentage than we like to acknowledge). Democracy — even real democracy — will not defeat radicalism. And while democracy has many virtues, it also creates the conditions in which Islamic radicalism can flourish in a way it cannot in authoritarian regimes…
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- British Teacher Faces 40 Lashes In Sudan… « Nice Deb
- The Jawa Report
- British Woman To Be Whipped and Jailed Because Students Named A Teddy Bear Mohammed « BUUUUURRRRNING HOT
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Bizarre savages. Scared that their silly cult will be revealed as a silly cult.
We need some Special Forces to swoop in and spirit this foolish (for teaching in Sudan) woman away back to Britain.
She’s white. She’s totally on her own here.
Can we stop calling people who leave the comforts of their homes and journey to distant lands which are marred by conflict in order to serve the local populace foolish?
What Ms Gibbons has done is truly brave, selfless and commendable. I hope that the British government will grow some “cojones” and secure her release. But after the debacle of the Royal Navy at the hands of Iran … (where a marine admits to crying like a baby because his captors took his iPod) … I do not put much stock in Britain looking after its own. Perhaps the US will be willing to lend a hand?
Too busy bashing President Bush and the U.S.
Where is Amnesty International, indeed!
Probably out somewhere lobbying for Sharia in Michigan or Minnesota.
This is what’s in store for us if there is not some kind of awakening before it’s too late.
It is stunning how weak their faith is if they must whip a woman for such a small thing. People confident in their beliefs do not treat small slights with barbaric actions.
What are the Muslims so afraid of, their false prophet and their moon god cant take a little heat? I’m convinced this teddy bear thing was not meant as an insult. The poor woman just wasnt thinking. I guess an apology to the prophet and moon god would not be accepted.
Our Savior was insulted, vilified, beaten and crucified for us. Everyday in the media and else where you see Christianity insulted and vilified. Do we get upset? No, our prophet/savior and God are big enough to take it and they dont need our help.
40 lashes would kill this innocent teacher, if they pursue down this road there will be hell to pay.
How much you want to be this teacher, like the rape victim in Saudi Arabia, will be given an additional punishment because of the media coverage?
It wouldn’t surprise me.
As aj said, 40 lashes could be a death sentence.
Where are the feminists? The politically correct? All those “human rights” advocates?
Chirp…chirp…chirp…chirp…
Apologies - that should read
“How much you want to BET…”
We have been told over and over that we are not at war with Islam.
I think maybe we should be.
Perhaps Islam should be designated as a terrorist organization.
James, it seems like we have some catching up to do…
@englishqueen01
I’m not a betting man, and even if I was this bet is one I would hesitate to make.
Where’s Hillarity Robthem CLintoon? Should she be calling for the release of this lady?
Islam is the enemy.
America needs to wake up quickly, otherwise we are doomed. The Islamists have learned to exploit our weaknesses and we are already paying the price.
Terrorists smuggled in to attack an Army base, the removal of advertising support from conservative talk shows demanded by CAIR. The removal of a Christian show from a Tampa TV station simply because local muslims didn’t like what was being said about Islam.
America is blinded by Political Correctness. We are losing our freedoms because of CAIR, who by the way has an office on Capitol Hill.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We MUST ammend the 1st Ammendment to ban the practice of any religion which states as a goal, to replace our constitution with religious tenets like Shari’a law. Like it or not, Islam’s goal is world domination and we must stop them now.
John, #16, you beat me too it! Hillary is out there trying to round up votes from women, simply because she is a woman. If she’s so concerned about women she should open her mouth - normally not a problem for a Clinton - and say something. Why won’t she? Google Huma Abedin. Hillary has her own personal - very personal - Islamic adviser. If she gets elected, get your Burkhas now while they’re cheap.
No surprise that Shamnesty International is busy looking elsewhere (maybe some terrorist is being made to wear panties on his head somewhere in U.S. custody – oh the horror!), but where are the so-called moderate leaders of this supposed religion of peace? Maybe they’re off beating their women into submission somewhere. I don’t know whether it is nature or nurturing, but hatred, violence, and intolerance are as much a part of islamo-fascists as their DNA.
Too Funny Aloha Guy#18. So you’re saying Hillarity is tongue tide?
Islam is at war with us infidels, no question about it. But if the infidels were to declare war on Islam, I wonder what form it would take.
When the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and lie in wait for them, in every strategem of war (Surah 9:5)
This “incident” will surely be used as a pretense for two or three British embassy bombings. Religion of Peace? FA!
If only people got as worked up over Sudan’s genocidal killings in Darfur as they do over 40 laches to a teacher (the fact that she’s white of course has nothing to do with it). (Note to all the flamers here: that’s not defending the treatment of the British teacher, it’s to put our outrage in perspective — WWJD?)
Rusty should market those Mohammed bears. He can sell them right next to my Shia Pets. They’re like Chia Heads, except when they are done growing, you take a knife and lop the whole head off.
Oh nooooo. B-Billy doing the WWJD like S-boy.
Okay freak (you started the name calling so deal with it) - here it goes. No, what she is going through has nothing to do with being white. She is Christian and they were looking for a reason to subdue her.
We (I guess that would mean us “flamers”) are worked up about the Sudan and Darfur. You do not speak for us nor (as it is becoming obvious you are a troll) do you think like us.
The topic is about this woman.
Please, I implore you, keep up the Jesus rhetoric. I am looking forward to the day you receive those words I love to hear:
Buh-bye.
Good points, Michelle, regarding the Democracy Project and the general attitude towards Islam. Debbie Schlussel has an excellent post today regarding President Bush’s meeting with the factions fighting over/within Israel and strong points about what “compromising” gains anyone against their enemies: defeat. A large supply of replacement gonads is required, in D.C. (and other places…) quickly. Large, bold, uncompromising-to hell with their feelings-gonads…John Wayne/Ronald Reagan sized will do…
Yep Soap,
I once again smell a troll. Foul, repugnant odor it is.
This poor lady is truly a Damsel in Distress who needs her Knight in Shining Armor. I hope the Brits step in and whisk her away to freedom.
@24
So we aren’t supposed to get worked up about this because she is white? People have been “worked up” over the treatment of people in Darfur for a long time. Many Christian aid agencies are already working in the region. Yet, we aren’t allowed to be worked up when one of our own is taken on some flimsy pretext and threatened to be flogged?
You really don’t want to know WWJD.
A lesson anyone should have been able to understand after the culprits of the 9/11 attacks were exposed along with their motivation. The more all of us learn about Sharia Law and the oppression of women by Islam the less tolerant I become (I am at zero tolerance myself at this time). It has been proven through their own actions the Muslim death cult can not coexist along side a democratic form of government.
No, it’s WWJB…Who Would Jesus Bomb?
There are rumours that she could be released without charge. source.
Well that would be outstanding news. Then hopefully she will get the hell out of the Sudan. There are some countries I won’t travel to, because of the risk of breaking some type of bizarre or arbitary law. This woman did nothing wrong, anyway you wanna spin. At worse, she accidently offended some radical extremists.
There was an uproar in India last year when Richard Gere gave a Bollywood actress a hug and kiss on the cheek with a swoon in public. He was charged in absetenia, as was the actress, and angry protesters took to the streets to burn effigies. Eventually, the matter was resolved somehow, but geesh.
When I was in High School or college I remember there was kid overseas in the Middle East or Asia….I can’t remember, but he engaged in some type of graffiti related criminal mischief, and was sentenced to a “caning”. Many in this country were shocked and appalled, but nowayknow, juvenile vandalism doesn’t warrant probation all around the world.
This woman tried to do a good turn, and she did it in the wrong dang country, and got caught up with the wrong dang religious extremists. Nowyaknow, don’t go to the Sudan, unless you’re going to fight. Hopefully, she’ll be home by the weekend.
Islam is the enemy, get your head around that fact; or lose it.
Did Soapbox and pgtip purposefully ignore what I wrote? I said the teacher’s skin color affected OUR reaction, not why Sudan is persecuting her. And I said that I am not minimalizing the persecution of her, just comparing the reaction to 40 laches to that of 300,000 - 400,000 deaths. Didn’t see anything about Darfur in the papers today and you’ll be hard pressed to convince me that the world hasn’t largely lost interest.
I think Archon has confused Jesus with Saul.
And Soap, this one is for you (though all are welcome): Matthew 25.
Yep B-Billy. Jesus would leave 99 for the one. One is important and so is this one teacher.
To suggest Michelle opened this thread because this teacher is white should get you a warning at least. I CHOSE to think you were referring to her captors and NOT making that leap.
Do not test me on the Bible - I know more than you think I know.
S-boy tried what you are now doing and before long, he was gone.
This thread should not include you teaching others about faith or Jesus. Unless you are out laying down your life, you would be hard pressed to preach to me. [Shameless plug] Click on my name above then, try again.
I still implore you, keep it up.
P.S.
Archon was doing his impression of Southernboy and mocking you.
Sorry to be the spoiler, but I don’t agree that this woman deserves a free rescue courtesy of the British Armed Forces. She deliberately put herself in harm’s way. While I don’t know for sure, there is at least a reasonable possibility that she had some romantic notions about assisting a Muslim society that is being cruelly oppressed by Western colonialism (apologies on the small chance I’m wrong).
Think about it. Suppose someone decides it would be a lot of fun to hike alone up a desolate mountain in the middle of a blizzard with no supplies, gets stranded and calls out for rescue on a satellite phone. The National Guard spends tens of thousands of dollars and risks their own lives rescuing the moron. Shouldn’t the moron fully reimburse the National Guard, as a partial disincentive to future ill-conceived adventures? That’s what this reminds me of.
Forget the woman, why aren’t the little school children getting lashed for voting for the name in the first place? After all, it’s all about the children.
/Sarc
Why of course, naming the kid Muhammad is fine, but not the Teddy…
Once again the religion that is satanist from its start attacks an innocent woman. People are easily blinded by the devil to think Islam is the truth. Its the opposite because it refers to Jesus as a mere prophet and we all know Jesus is God and only a Divine power can forgive sin. Jesus is the Truth and most of the world will reject this truth.
I can’t believe you’d equate the actions of Ms Gibbons with the moron you’re describing. The former inconveniences herself to help others, while the latter inconveniences himself by playing the retard. The former’s actions benefits others while the latter’s actions are of dubious value.
You need to understand the school she’s working in. Unity High School was founded by the coptic community with the backing of the Anglican church. It’s a school that admits both Christians AND Muslims.
I find it a rather large leap in logic to equate a teacher who has willingly done that, with say some crazed American who flies to the Gaza strip and burns American flags.
Hey B-Billy, here’s your original statement. “If only people got worked up…” implies that people aren’t worked up and hey look we are only worked up because she is white. It also implied that people are somehow not “worked up” about the situation in Sudan. It doesn’t matter that you tried to add caveats at the end (like politicians trying to cover their own butt), if you didn’t mean it you wouldn’t have said it.
Most (all?) of us are “worked up” but we are aware that the US and UK military is stretched thin as it is right now and since other Western countries aren’t really going to do anything it there isn’t much that can be done. African Union? Heh… no. UN peacekeepers? Maybe 30 years ago. Not in this time and age (see Lebanon 2006).
Who knows, you might have been trying to be witty and having it completely backfire on you. I could be wrong in interpreting what you’ve said. If I am, I am sorry.
A 7 year old from the class has come forward to defend his teacher. Source.