Teacher Hidden As Sudan Mob Urges Death

Ali Mohamed Ajab a lawyer with Khartoum Human rights monitoring group talks to journalists in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, Nov 29, 2007 shortly after British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, Thursday. (AP Photos/Abd Raouf) (Abd Raouf - AP)

Protesters dismissed Gibbons' claims that she didn't mean to insult the prophet.

"It is a premeditated action, and this unbeliever thinks that she can fool us?" said Yassin Mubarak, a young dreadlocked man swathed in green and carrying a sword. "What she did requires her life to be taken."

Several hundred protesters marched to Unity High School, where Gibbons worked, and chanted outside briefly before heading toward the nearby British Embassy. They were stopped by security forces two blocks from the embassy. The protest dispersed after an hour.

"I would like to tell the whole world that what happened here from this English teacher is not acceptable to us," said a protester, Sheikh Nasser Abu Shamah.

There was no overt sign that the government organized the protest, but such a public rally could not have taken place without at least official assent.

Gibbons was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in jail and deportation for insulting Islam with the naming of the teddy bear, which was part of a class project for her 7-year-old students at the private school.

She escaped harsher punishment that could have included up to 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine. Her time in jail since her arrest Sunday counts toward the sentence.

The conviction shocked Britons, and the British government said it was working with Sudan's regime to win her release. Muslim groups in Britain and the United States denounced the ruling, saying Gibbons should not have been tried.

Many in the West were mystified by the anger over a teddy bear.

During her trial, a weeping Gibbons said she had intended no harm. Her students, overwhelmingly Muslim, chose the name for the bear, and Muhammad is one of the most common names for men in the Arab world. Muslim scholars generally agree that intent is a key factor in determining if someone has violated Islamic rules against insulting the prophet.

But the case was caught up in the ideology that President Omar al-Bashir's Islamic regime has long instilled in Sudan, a mix of anti-colonialism, religious fundamentalism and a sense that the West is besieging Islam.

"The escalation is deliberate," said Mariam al-Mahdi, a leader of the main opposition Umma party. "There has been a strong official mobilization in the media and mosques against the so-called imperialists and the crusaders."