40 lashes over toy’s name
28 November 2007 by StardustAhh, Islam, the religion of “peace”. All good this woman has done goes by the wayside, and no forgiveness for an innocent mistake.
Sudan charges Briton with insulting religion<
KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British teacher has been charged with inciting hatred, insulting religion and showing contempt of religious beliefs after her class named a teddy bear Muhammad, state media said on Wednesday.
*snip*
Gibbons was arrested Sunday and, if found guilty of insulting religion, could be punished with a whipping of up to 40 lashes, a fine or six months in prison.
Gibbons was arrested after one of her pupils’ parents complained, accusing her of naming the bear after Islam’s prophet and founder. Muhammad is a common name among Muslim men, but giving the prophet’s name to an animal would be seen as insulting by many Muslims.School apologizes
Several Sudanese newspapers ran a statement Tuesday reportedly from Unity High School saying the administration “offers an official apology to the students and their families and all Muslims for what came from an individual initiative.” It said Gibbons had been “removed from her work at the school.”
[Ed. note: Typical...superstitious beliefs trump education with these delusional folks.]
Children reportedly chose name
Gibbons, 54, was teaching her pupils, who are around age 7, about animals and asked one of them to bring in her teddy bear, Boulos said. She asked the students to pick names for it and they proposed Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and in the end the pupils voted to name it Muhammad, he said.
*snip*
There were widespread calls in Britain for Gibbons’ release. The Muslim Council of Britain calls upon the Sudanese government to intervene.
British opposition Conservative party lawmaker William Hague called on the British government to “make it clear to the Sudanese authorities that she should be released immediately.”
“To condemn Gillian Gibbons to such brutal and barbaric punishment for what appears to be an innocent mistake is clearly unacceptable,” he said.
Addition: Here’s the news video
Addition #2…those bastards removed the video!
UPDATE NOVEMBER 29, 2007
Briton convicted in Sudan blasphemy case
A British teacher in Sudan was convicted Thursday of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad, and she was sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation to Britain, one of her lawyers said.
28 November 2007, on 4:35 pm
They should beat the kids, instead. That’ll learn’em.
28 November 2007, on 5:12 pm
^ But only the girls, ‘coz it’s always those dirty, filthy, sinful females’ fault, constantly inciting innocent males to evil…
28 November 2007, on 7:54 pm
Good thing Islam is a religion of peace. I’d hate to see the fate that would befall this poor woman if it was a brutish, irrational, jingoistic and intolerant faith.
28 November 2007, on 9:05 pm
I name every dump I take Mohammed.
“Dammit, Mohammed! You left streaks in the bowl again!”
28 November 2007, on 9:29 pm
I’m not sure where I come down on this one. Obviously, the custom and/or law that this woman has run afoul of, is ridiculous and barely medieval. However, this is another case of a xian going to a place where they are not wanted- see those two missionary girls that got jailed in Afghanistan a while back(I suppose it’s some sort of martyr complex on their part that drives them to do these idiotic things), to do things that fly in the face of local customs.
Is this particular custom retarded? Sure. All you’ve got to do is look at the brouhaha over the Danish cartoons. But, then, figuring in the society in which it took place, you also have to look at the retarded uproar caused here in Cincinnati a few years back over a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at a local gallery. Same offense, something rude done to a picture of their imaginary friend’s chosen representative. Same response, protests in the street. Obviously, the protests here weren’t violent but, here, there wasn’t even a law being broken at all.
I honestly believe that, were the religions switched, we’d find the Islam here to be the same insidious, but relatively civil- with the occasional Phelps-esque outburst of planned parenthood shootings- thing we deal with now and the new xians flying planes into buildings.
The religion of a culture adapts itself to the conditions of it’s adherents- to wit, today’s wahhabism springing forth from the abject, desiccated poor stomped under the bootheel of bloated, corrupt, secular rulers supported by others seemingly just like them.
In no way does the, what, environmental inevitability(?) of the resulting virulence and extremism excuse those who practice it. It just helps to comprehend…
28 November 2007, on 10:00 pm
This is 2007 and it’s about time these fundies of all varieties get educated and civilized, which it seems that is what this woman was trying to do. But I also agree that this woman should have been fully educated herself on the customs and laws of the land she is going to live and teach in.
I would be so incredibly pissed off if I were to be flogged for unknowingly violating some imaginary sky daddy beliefs. It’s so senseless.
28 November 2007, on 10:11 pm
colbert is right: bears are the biggest threat to the religinazi. so bear up everybody! the russians trained their bears to ride bicycles and do circus tricks. we need to step up and train our bears to sniff out religious bullshit and maul the crap out of it. i wonder if throwing honey on the fundies would work? … or maybe … we build the world’s largest basket and invite all the god-botherers to a picnic. bears can do the rest.
28 November 2007, on 10:12 pm
Just another, of the seemingly endless examples of total religious insanity. The whole notion of ‘blasphemy’ against imagined gods and dead, numb-skull, psychotic ‘prophets’ continues to show just how totally brainwashed a HUGE portion of humanity is in this…supposed…more ‘enlightened’ era.
Yeah…”Modern Times”…WTF!!!
And speaking of fucking…
Fuck all the non-existent gods; and fuck the totally dead ‘Mohammered’ (if he ever even existed)…that trouble making, totally delusional, pedophile asshole.
“Why we ought!” Kidding(?), of course, butt…
May that flying horse he supposedly flew off on…(and ANY available 72 (very ugly) virgins?)…kick him square in the…erm…
(your multiple choice?)
1) balls
2) arse
3) BOTH 1&2!
4) Additional suggestions?
Now where did I archive those nasty Mohammered cartoons…Hmmm…
Whoops! My 
mask fell off!
I’ll just print one up; and make a nice dart board? Oh, wait…I don’t have any darts. Damn!!!
However, my birthday’s comin’ up next Monday; I think I’ll treat myself; whilst chalking it off as just another “Lifetime Foist”! Tee-hee!
28 November 2007, on 10:14 pm
However, this is another case of a xian going to a place where they are not wanted- see those two missionary girls that got jailed in Afghanistan a while back(I suppose it’s some sort of martyr complex on their part that drives them to do these idiotic things), to do things that fly in the face of local customs.
RDZ, I agree with you about this. These things happen when Xians try to sneakily injerject their sky daddy beliefs into someone else’s sky daddy beliefs. And they never learn. Maybe this woman knew full well what she was doing, but I still don’t think she should be flogged for it (deported, maybe). Just because she is delusional and stepped on the toes of another set of delusional beliefs is not an excuse or justification for barbaric punishments.
28 November 2007, on 10:41 pm
Here is the idiocy of the whole thing:
AND…so much for the poverty excuse for idiocy
29 November 2007, on 12:48 am
And some superstitious sky daddy person must have complained to YouTube. The video is no longer available.
29 November 2007, on 2:13 am
Wait a minute–didn’t we have a post about bears last week? I’m seeing a trend here!
Ms. Gibbons should take a page from the atheist and bear joke and convert the teddy bear to Xtianity. Surely the newly annointed Xtian bear will find Sudanese Islamists to be juicy and delicious.
29 November 2007, on 2:56 am
Oh fer dogssakes. The YouTube vid IS down. Disgraceful.
29 November 2007, on 4:46 am
Actually, the kids thinking it is a good thing to name the teddy bear muhammed is an insult to them. They have already been brainwashed.
The real Muhammed would have raped them, the pervert that he was.
29 November 2007, on 11:48 am
“However, this is another case of a xian going to a place where they are not wanted- see those two missionary girls that got jailed in Afghanistan a while back(I suppose it’s some sort of martyr complex on their part that drives them to do these idiotic things), to do things that fly in the face of local customs.”
It’s not, as far as I can tell, a xian school, so I don’t think you’re exactly on track there. There’s no report of what her religion is and no evidence that she was a missionary in any way. Somehow turning this into “It’s her own fault for being a xian where she’s not wanted” doesn’t seem on the mark.
Calling the religion’s actions barbaric and so on is, of course, quite correct. I really like the idea of naming bowel movements after Muhammed, but I think I’ll expand that to include peeing, as in “Damn it, Muhammed, you splattered the rim of the bowl.”
29 November 2007, on 12:55 pm
I’ve taken to calling my bouts with the runs ‘Shiva’, just for variation’s sake.
29 November 2007, on 4:52 pm
Well, at least those morons aren’t going to whip her and getting deported is probably the best thing that can happen to you in Sudan.
29 November 2007, on 5:33 pm
It sucks that she has to spend 15 days in jail. But I suppose that’s better than getting whipped. After all that’s happened to her, I bet deportation will feel more like a reward than a punishment.
But it’s still total bullshit that these nutjobs are getting worked up over what 7-year-olds named a teddy bear.
29 November 2007, on 5:36 pm
Maybe we should all go out and buy some teddy bears, hang a Mohammed name tag on them and leave them in front of the Sudanese embassy to the UN.
29 November 2007, on 5:38 pm
But it’s still total bullshit that these nutjobs are getting worked up over what 7-year-olds named a teddy bear.
Especially when there are so many jerkass muslim men named Mohammed!
Maybe we should all go out and buy some teddy bears, hang a Mohammed name tag on them and leave them in front of the Sudanese embassy to the UN.
Brooklyn Boy…you are so eeevulll and intolerant and non-understanding!
29 November 2007, on 6:08 pm
Brooklyn Boy: Well, at least those morons aren’t going to whip her and getting deported is probably the best thing that can happen to you in Sudan.
Plus, she’ll have a cool story to tell her grandkids. “How I managed to get Sudanese panties in a bunch and myself booted out of the country over the naming of a class teddy bear…”
29 November 2007, on 6:51 pm
Don’t beat the teachers or the kids or their mothers. Beat their lame-ass, Qat chewing daddies. If they were real men, in the mold of Mohamm-O-Meal they would have made damned sure there little ones learned two things first: everybody who isn’t us is evil, and, oh, hell: I forgot #2.
29 November 2007, on 8:55 pm
Thanks Eve, you and Sarah have both hit what keeps bothering me about this whole thing. I get myself all worked up about it, and then realize that it’s about… naming a teddy bear!
I mean you’ve got to have lost all sense of proportion to go to the authorities with a straight face and tell them that you think your child’s teacher ought to be arrested over the naming of a teddy bear. It boggles the mind that no one along the chain of command burst into laughter and said, “Hold on, what? Why are you wasting my time with this?”
Of course what this brings to light is the fact that this isn’t really about the naming of a teddy bear. It’s about religious nutjobbery coupled with it’s twin, xenophobia.
29 November 2007, on 8:56 pm
Oops…guess those comment tags don’t work like html, eh? Ah well…got a little carried away with the italics.
29 November 2007, on 11:59 pm
Infidels unfortunate enough to be in Sudan ought to join this teacher in her “exile” from the country, and leave the Sudanese to their ignorance.
30 November 2007, on 11:16 am
…and now the gawd-infected are calling for the teacher’s EXECUTION!!! “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”
With a beautiful belief system they have cooked up for themselves!
Allah be damned.
30 November 2007, on 11:47 am
Ahhhh, the “the religion of peace”
Here’s the link to what trent is referring to
Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton
30 November 2007, on 1:04 pm
Oh my gawd. It’s a fucking teddy bear! Why in the world would you want to execute someone for allowing 7-year-olds to name a stuffed bear?!? Holy shit. These people are insane!
While they’re bitching and pissing and moaning, do they ever stop to think that maybe it as just an honest mistake on her part? That this woman really didn’t know that it was an insult? And do they consider that this woman has friends and family who love her?
Holy fucking Muhammad on a pile of shit. These people have no compassion at all. I’m disgusted and amazed that anyone could be so brutal.
30 November 2007, on 1:27 pm
What fucking chicken shit insanity:
RE that Yahoo article…
“In an editorial, The Daily Telegraph said Miliband “has tiptoed around the case, avoiding a threat to cut aid and asserting that RESPECT FOR ISLAM RUNS DEEP IN BRITAIN. Given that much of the government’s financial support goes to the wretched refugees in Darfur and neighboring Chad, Mr. Miliband’s caution is understandable.”
More like total fear of the UK’s own resident psychopathic Muslim fuckheads.
Of course the usual, also delusional, Xtian godbotherers keep holding on to “respecting” belief in Sky Daddy-ism of any sort, whilst totally ignoring or condemning, outright, the rational, more sensible, non-believers!
Yeah…”Fake-based” idiots; just like our own totally idiotic “Demander in (Bull)Sheit”!
Then, again; maybe more and more zealous, mission-minded, Fundies ought to just give up their mind changing agenda, and stay put.
“Yeah…you Jeebus fucks…keep swooning and waving your arms in praise towards a godless sky!
Of course…you could just worship the Sun…which is…without knowing…what you’re REALLY doing!”
Speaking of THAT; (and somewhat OT segue; but maybe not?) here are a couple of YouTubes you guys MIGHT find interesting…
[a two parter, showing the ancient occult-mythological source for most of today's brain-dead religious literalism. The ancient world's perceptions...in other words, pre-dating any REAL scientific (no Hubble?) knowledge]:
“Myth of Religion; The Solar Messiahs God’s Sun Christ Horus”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQLD59fK_Iw
“Jesus Christ a Religious Myth of God’s Sun Age Pisces”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwzDFvqfcdc
Soooo…next time you see a Jeebus ‘fish’ sticker on the car in front of you…you’ll know something the dufus driving that car hasn’t the foggiest notion about… that oh-so-evil, occult symbol brandishing…”Sun” worshiper.
What! Honk if you love the SUN of Gob?
“All praise to our life giving SOL!”
Yeah…That terrifying…and absolutely necessary…local “lake of fire” in the sky?
What’s that?…Ummm…Sorry; I’m just revving up for the upcoming…Heathen…Winter Solstice celebration…that’s all!
As you were, fellow GifSters.
Key of C?
“Deck the halls with boughs of Holly…” (etc.)
30 November 2007, on 2:29 pm
Well, when she’s filling out job applications, this teacher will certainly have something unusual and interesting to put under “Reason for leaving your last position”.
I’m glad she got off without the flogging. And I agree, it’s best that she got deported. She wouldn’t have been safe there after this.
30 November 2007, on 6:22 pm
Considering that the Sudanese government is complicit in the murder of black Sudanese muslims, by the Arab muslim militia (the Janja weed army?) why would this be a surprise?
30 November 2007, on 7:48 pm
I want to know what happened to the teddy bear. Did they stone it?
1 December 2007, on 5:58 am
the protests in Sudan against the teacher. Once again it is groups made up principally, maybe entirely of young men. Almost all of the “terrorist” bombings are carried out by young men. I think that all of those in Europe and the U.S. have been done by young men.
The often violent protests against Salman Rushdie and the cartoons were the efforts of young men. Haven’t all the attacks on abortion clinics and personnel been the acts of young men?
Has anyone studied why it appears to be young men in particular who are moved to carry out these violent protests and attacks? Is this gender differential simply social, or is there some biological reason?
The results today seem to show that one should be particularly wary of young men who go to churches or mosques.
1 December 2007, on 2:17 pm
Bernarda…RE:
“Has anyone studied why it appears to be young men in particular who are moved to carry out these violent protests and attacks? Is this gender differential simply social, or is there some biological reason?”
You might check out (if you haven’t already) this very interesting talk from the Dawkins AAI 2007 Conference. I think this may be very relevant to your query.
“Andy Thomson on Suicide Terrorism” a 3 part talk [this is the Main 'Thomson' link page]:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1710,We-Few-We-Happy-Few-We-Band-of-Brothers,Andy-Thomson-Richard-Dawkins-Foundation
1 December 2007, on 3:20 pm
Can you imagine the outcry in America if somebody named a teddy bear after a famous and loved dead US President?
1 December 2007, on 3:40 pm
Can you imagine the outcry in America if somebody named a teddy bear after a famous and loved dead US President?
The “teddy” bear is actually named after a U.S President…Teddy Roosevelt.
“it became the topic of a political cartoon.”
And there was no rioting in the streets or calls for someone’s death?
2 December 2007, on 4:11 am
Thanx ChuckA, I will check it out.
2 December 2007, on 7:01 am
ChuckA, did you notice the reference he gave to “The Looming Tower” by Laurence Wright?
http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Qaeda-Road-Vintage/dp/1400030846/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196591545&sr=1-1
It looks like I’ll have to get it.
2 December 2007, on 12:35 pm
Actually, Bernarda, I was recording all the AAI ‘lectures’ off the computer to my DVR ‘Dawkins Archive’, and wasn’t quite as astute as you in noticing that Leaning Tower reference.
Thanks for ‘pointing’ to that book link. Scanning the various reviews certainly tweaked my interest. Looks very enlightening, indeed!
As usual, the general media (CNN etc.) is essentially asleep RE any relevant comprehension of the whole subject matter.
What! Erm…”Burqa-like”?
Or maybe: “Dead Brains Walking”?
[In other words...Time to check my local Library?]
2 December 2007, on 1:09 pm
Sorry, Bernarda…I meant…erm…”LOOMING” Tower.
Yeah Pizza (Pisa’s Leaning Tower?) on the brain.
Hmmm…I AM getting hungry, though!
“Hungry…burqa-like brain…NOT walking (or working)!”
More java, please!
3 December 2007, on 6:25 am
ChuckA, in the Q&A third part, he also mentions an article by Scott Atran “Genesis and Future of Suicide Terrorism”;
http://www.interdisciplines.org/terrorism/papers/1
An interview with Atran;
http://discovermagazine.com/2003/oct/featdialogue/
There was also a mention of Christian Caryl who wrote a review of several books on terrorism “Why They do it” at the NY Review of Books, but that is a pay site.
3 December 2007, on 3:55 pm
Thanks, Bernarda, for those links.
LOTS of reading to do, huh?
I’m kind of in neutral today…my 68th BD…Yikes! I’m celebrating (or is it calibrating?) by doing next to nothing for the whole day.
[What!...cue: Leslie Gore's "It's my Party"? "GAAGH!!!"]
Even typing this becomes a somewhat cosmological…”WHY”?
I AM completely sober, however!…
What’s that?…Big fucking deal?
INDEED!
Just another fucking Monday…erm…Thank Gob?
Hmmm…[A new "Mondays" restaurant chain commercial]:
“Fuck Gob; it’s Monday! The new exciting atheistic, Happy Heathen Hangout.
Where there’s plenty of great food, tall drinks (& assorted, colorful drugs?)…but, absolutely NO Gob!
FGIM, we say! That’s right…and bring your whole FGIM family!”
3 December 2007, on 7:58 pm
bernarda: Has anyone studied why it appears to be young men in particular who are moved to carry out these violent protests and attacks? Is this gender differential simply social, or is there some biological reason?
Raging hormones, perhaps, directed outward (by ideological leaders too selfish or cowardly to risk their own lives) in extreme physical violence instead of, say, sports or sex?
Anne Rice’s titular character in her novel Queen of the Damned had a solution: kill off almost all men, leaving only one healthy, fertile male for every hundred women.
3 December 2007, on 10:01 pm
Let’s name a lot of teddy bears Mohammed and then send them to random addresses in Khartoum.
4 December 2007, on 6:20 pm
^ Yes! From untraceable sources so that they don’t even have anyone to issue fatwas against!