Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher working in Khartoum, Sudan, is in prison today and will be for the next 15 days, and afterwards will be deported home. Her crime? She allowed her students to name the class teddy bear Muhammad.
WTF?
Her sentence was, to her, a grateful relief, considering the alternative would be forty lashes.
Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well known cleric and the equivalent of those lovable homophobic women-hating bible thumpers we have right here in the states, called Gibbons “an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad.”
I’m all for personal beliefs. These individual beliefs are what make us American and civil. However, sending someone to jail because you don’t agree with them is wrong. Wrong. Sudan is wrong, and this is insane.
What about the millions of other men in the world named Muhammad? The Columbia Encyclopedia (2000) says Muhammad is “probably the most common given name” in the world. Should we protest their existence and scream to have them killed by firing squad the way they do with Ms. Gibbons?
