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[Duffy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=497490&in_page_id=1811&ct=5

no comment

[QatarChic]

I left a comment here

http://sudan-embassy.co.uk/en/component/option,com_contact/ampItemid,3/

[Dedicated]

This poor woman will now have a criminal record which could bar her from ever teaching again, either in the UK or overseas. Yet the school director classed her as " a marvellous teacher". How sad!

[007]

[veiledsentiments]

After Friday prayers, there were huge demonstrations in Khartoum wanting her killed by firing squad for her crime. I found this in an article in the Guardian this morning:

It had emerged earlier in the day that complaints about naming the teddy bear Muhammad had come from a fellow member of staff at the exclusive Unity high school where Gibbons worked.

Teachers and clergy from the school's board turned up at court to support Gibbons. Robert Boulos, the school's director, said education ministry officials had originally told him that parents had complained about the naming of the bear. But, he said: "Today I heard that it was a member of the school staff. I was horrified."

The complainant was named as Sara Khawad, an office assistant at the school, who was the key prosecution witness.

[Duffy]

Looked like a "simple" case of jealousy? Simple as it sounds, yet oh so true of other much less talented "teachers" who cannot abide to see someone doing better than them - Classic case.

Personal opinion:

This lady, Gillian Gibbons, has had to suffer the "slings and arrows" of somebody elses "discontent". Regrettably as she was an infidel, she had no defence, so it seems in Sharia law.

So the mob rule wins again. The person who made the complaint " Sara Khawad" obviously knew what the reaction would be. In my honest opinion, she also knew that she would gain some Kudos by "outing" Mrs Gibbons to those who are more "active" with regards to the teaching of an infidel language.

Whatever her reasons, Sara Khawad will forever be branded as a selfish person who sought to destroy a talented teacher because of the ineptitude she herself suffered from.

As of this day, she will have to live with the utter contempt due to her.

Look at this!! it is what she has generated!!!!!!!!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=497490&in_page_id=1811&ct=5



Any one else care to comment??

Duffy

[QatarChic]

How can you even start to comment on a group of people who choose to protest in this barbaric way? wielding knives? making death threats? I am sorry but I think this whole thing has got completely out of control. Just beyond comprehension. Nothing surprises me though. This comes from a country that allows thousands of women to be raped in Darfur and to have their villages burned down. It was clearly an innocent mistake on Gillian's behalf. As a Brit I am disgusted that our government isn't doing more to help this poor woman.

[eha]

Mob rule is right. Enlightened Sudanese are trying to make their voices heard, but, as in Europe in the Dark Ages, the voice of reason isn't usually the one that gets heard in the short run:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7121025.stm

[Geronimo]

Muslim organisations in Britain have been busy deploring the arrest and the verdict. For example, Khalid Anis, from the Islamic Society of Britain, is quoted in today's "Manchester Evening News" as follows:-

"How would the Prophet Muhammad himself have reacted to a classroom of children wanting to name a teddy used for their learning in his honour? He would have been touched and would probably have laughed. Such was his gentle and pragmatic character.

"Yet it is in his name, supposedly, that an ordinary school teacher has been arrested for an innocent and well meaning classroom exercise. Gillian Gibbons should be released immediately, apologised to and compensated."
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1026671_muslims_want_teacher_freed

The Sudanese clerics are stirring up religious hatred for their own political ends; and they are presenting another challenge for Britain's inter-faith groups - in Liverpool, especially.

Inadvertently, they are presenting the plight of the Sudanese people to a much wider international audience. For example, here is a link to a brief description of the prison that Gillian Gibbons is being held in:-

(MOD removal due to breaking margins complaint)

The "Liverpool Echo" would not normally report on conditions in a Sudanese prison, would it?

The authority figures responsible for such inhumane prison conditions are being be put on trial in the homes of millions around the world. Oh, and did some one mention Darfur, already?

[Borealis]

[quote="QatarChic"] As a Brit I am disgusted that our government isn't doing more to help this poor woman.[/quote]

I agree. Given the report in this link I don't understand why the British government continues to adopt the softly softly approach. It clearly doesn't work. To say they're "very disappointed" at the jailing of this innocent woman is the epitome of understatement, surely!

We have more than enough ignorant thugs in our own society who no doubt will seize this opportunity to abuse innocent Moslems in Britain as "retribution".

B

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7122007.stm

[flutterbayou]

The Guardian article I read Friday stated that a student named the teddy after himself, because each child took the bear home as a mate every so often. The children shared the teddy as their diary buddy, a figure they talked to while writing in their journals.

I simply do not understand why the headmaster didn't end this situation before it blew out of proportion. Any person who knew the idiosyncracies of the culture could have made the teddy leave the scene before it caused such an uprise.

She won't be safe in that prison for two weeks.

[scot47]

What would Qatarchic suggest ? A gunboat ? A nuke on Khartoum ?

[eha]

'I simply do not understand why the headmaster didn't end this situation before it blew out of proportion. Any person who knew the idiosyncracies of the culture could have made the teddy leave the scene before it caused such an uprise. '

But it wasn't up to the Headmaster, was it. The trouble-seeker involved reported the matter to the 'clerical' authorities, and thus it was out of his hands--- even out of the hands of the Sudanese authorities, who obvioulsy don't dare take any steps with the clerics other than appeasement. There are always people around who want to stir things up, without a modicum of feeling for the damage they do. I'd say most of us who've been around the region for a while have similar stories, except that, unlike this unfortunate woman, we were lucky enough that the authorities concerned kept the lid on it. And it's no use attacking the British Government for not supporting her; the situation is clearly dynamite, and they seem to be doing what they can to help her. All praise to the Muslim community in England, who've come out so clearly against the insanity.

[veiledsentiments]

Definitely the headmaster had zero control of a situation like this. One of the problems dealing with these cultures is that people with a complaint never go to their boss. This woman who complained wouldn't bother to go to the headmaster and say anything... no... she will go as far above his head as possible as her first step.

I did read in an article yesterday that the teacher was removed from the prison after the rioting and is in an undisclosed location 'on the other side of the river.'

I suspect that arrangements are being made to get her out of the country... likely before next week's Friday prayers. Then there will be smaller demonstrations complaining about that... after which we will never hear anything more about it.

VS

[ghost]

Those sorts of incidents, like this unfortunate one, prompt people in Western countries to view most Islamic countries as barbaric, and that is sad, because, in reality, the present fiasco would not occur in most of the countries in the region, and even in Saudi, which might be the most conservative in the region, I suspect that the affair would have been dealt with at the school level, and not have reached the public. The Saudis are smart and pragmatic enough to realize that a demonstration such as the one seen in Khartoum would not pay, long term. It would have been quashed.

When people that I know learn about my plan to work in Saudi or Oman next year, they question my sanity, and look at me as though I am writing my own death ticket. This has been blown out of proportion. It will not help relations though, and some of the damage done will be hard to mend.

Ghost in Korea.