This is a fight we must win

We must win or else life under such a regime will not be worth living:

KHARTOUM, Sudan – A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan, accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet by letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad, her school said on Monday.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where the Liverpool woman was being held.

Teachers at Unity High School in central Khartoum said Gibbons, 54, made an innocent mistake and simply let her pupils choose their favorite name for the toy as part of a school project.

Police arrested Gibbons on Sunday at her home inside the school premises, said Unity director Robert Boulos, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan’s Ministry of Education.

Boulos said she had since been charged with “blasphemy,” an offense he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

[…]

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked a girl to bring in her teddy bear to help the second grade class focus, said Boulos.

The teacher then asked the class to name the toy. “They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Mohammed. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name.” Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

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3 thoughts on “This is a fight we must win

  1. WTF? I’ll bet MOST of the boys in the class are named Muhammad, either their first or middle name. I had a Muslim boss one time who went by Ehsan. Then I found out his first name was really Mohammed (I believe that’s how he spelled it) and when I asked him about it he said that pretty much every male had that as either their first or middle name and that the ones like him with it as their first name usually went by their middle name to avoid confusion.

    If they can name all their children that, then what’s the big problem with naming their toy that?

    That has got to be just about as overly sensitive as you can get. It’s worse than all the do-gooders complaining about having sports teams named after native americans, as if it were some sort of insult instead of the tremendous compliment that it is.

  2. She’s British, she’s a woman, and she “explained what it meant to vote”. Isn’t that enough right there for the Religion of Perpetual Outrage to take action?

    1. What is she doing in Sudan in the first place? 2. Why would anyone be surprised that she’s in hot water? 3. This is an example of the forces behind “brain drain” in repressive societies—if she were smart, she would be teaching in a private school in the U.S..

  3. Yep! And, they are shooting folks who call long distance in North Korea.

    Then there is Hugo Chavez telling folks that if they don’t vote for HIS referendum they are traitors.

    Seems like everywhere but the US is a good place to be (NOT!).

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