KHARTOUM (AFP)
Sudan on Thursday jailed a British teacher for 15 days after she was charged with insulting Islam by allowing children to name a teddy bear Mohammed and ordered her deportation, her lawyer said.
Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old mother of two, had faced jail, flogging and a fine in the case, which threatened a diplomatic row with Britain, after she allowed her six and seven-year-old pupils to give the toy the same name as the Muslim prophet.
"The 15-day sentence will run from the time of her arrest on Sunday, after which she will be expelled from the country," lawyer Kamal Jazuli said after a marathon seven-hour hearing.
Mohammed is a popular name in Sudan but Islam forbids any physical representation of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
Following the verdict, prosecutor Babikr Abdulatif said "I think that the verdict is in accordance with the law because the objective is to reassure the Muslim community who felt the sanctity of their Prophet had been attacked."
The maximum sentence for breaching Article 125 of the penal code -- publicly insulting or degrading any religion, its rites, beliefs and sacred items or humiliating its believers -- is six months in jail, 40 lashes and a fine.
With a diplomatic crisis on the horizon, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said earlier that Gibbons had made an "innocent mistake," even as Sudan's ambassador to London was summoned to the Foreign Office for an explanation.
Prosecutors asked the judge to bring five witnesses to testify, including at least one colleague from the Christian-run English private school where Gibbons had taught for less than a term since leaving England for a new life.
Defence lawyer Kamal Jazuli told journalists that Gibbons said in court that "it was not she who named the bear but the pupils."
"If I offended anyone, I'm sorry. If I had any intention to offend Islam I would have been better off to have done it in Britain," Jazuli quoted Gibbons as saying.
Jazuli called two witnesses -- one of Gibbons' colleagues and a pupil's parent -- to testify in her favour.
The fellow teacher, named only as Dahlia, said she did not think Gibbons "had any intention to offend the Prophet and the parent said the same thing," Jazuli said.
She was arrested on Sunday after parents at the private English school where she had taught for less than a term complained that in allowing primary school children to name a cuddly toy Mohammed, she had insulted Muslims.
Although the affair has aroused rather scant attention in the Sudanese press, the independent English-language newspaper The Citizen published a stinging editorial declaring that Gibbons deserved better.
"Gibbons's crime reflects what non-Muslims living in northern Sudan go through every day. Women caught brewing local beverages... meant for traditional occasions are detained, flogged, fined and imprisoned," it said.
Alcohol is banned in Khartoum and women are expected to dress conservatively. |
