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A. Pedant

 
Teddy bare-faced nonsense

A story, covered in every UK news source is having quite an impact. Here's the BBC on the subject. The Guardian has a bit to say about it too:

It seemed the most innocent of school projects. To encourage her seven-year-old pupils to learn about the animal kingdom, Gillian Gibbons asked them to find a name for a teddy bear. Unfortunately, they chose Muhammad.

The Grauniad doesn't say but, apparently, the children voted, 20 of 23, for the name 'Muhammed'. Further, this was in honour of the most popular child in the class, also called 'Muhammed'.

Now the 54-year-old teacher from Liverpool is being held in a Sudanese jail facing charges of insulting Islam's prophet. She was detained at her residence at the exclusive British-styled Unity High School in the capital Khartoum on Sunday after a number of parents complained to the Ministry of Education.

The state-run Sudanese Media Centre reported that Khartoum's attorney's office would charge her under an act of Sharia Law dealing with "insult of faith". She could face a punishment of 40 lashes, six months in prison or a fine.

Words fail me: this is the sort of thing the crazies want here and we've got quite a lot of religion-protection already.

Fearing reprisals, the Unity's governors decided yesterday to close its doors until January. Robert Boulos, the school director, said he was "very worried for Miss Gibbons's safety". "This was a completely innocent mistake. She would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Well, I want to insult Islam and I want to do it as loudly as possible. In addition to uttering cries of 'God is grott' and 'God is merdeiful', at every available opportunity, I'm seeking advice on how I can be even more insulting. My dog's called Fred. I'm wondering about renaming him Muhammed. Still, perhaps it might be just as good to let him stay 'Fred' and call his arsehole 'Muhammed'. I'm just going to pop down to the Bagshot mosque to get a ruling.

What do you think, Myfanwy?

Labels: bear Islam lunacy religion sensibility Sudan

posted by josh at 10:25 am