Muslim Members of Britain's House of Lords Lobbied For Release Of Woman Jailed in Naming of Teddy Bear
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
LONDON, Dec. 3 -- Sudan's president on Monday pardoned a British schoolteacher sentenced to two weeks in jail for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, ending a delicate diplomatic tangle with a move that Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a victory for "common sense."
Gillian Gibbons, 54, was released to the care of the British Embassy in Khartoum and later was flown out of the country, the Associated Press reported, quoting an embassy spokesman.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir pardoned Gibbons, of Liverpool, after meeting with two Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords who had traveled to the predominantly Muslim African nation to lobby for her release.
"I have been in Sudan for only four months, but I have enjoyed myself immensely," Gibbons said in a statement read to reporters by one of the lords, Sayeeda Warsi. "I have encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from the Sudanese people. I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress."
Gibbons said she was looking forward to seeing her family and friends but "very sorry that I will be unable to return to Sudan."
"I was extremely happy working in Unity High School, and there I had made some wonderful friends," the statement said.
Brown told reporters he was "delighted and relieved" at the decision to free Gibbons and that "common sense had prevailed." He praised Warsi, the second lord, Nazir Ahmed, and other British officials he said had been working with Sudanese authorities behind the scenes.
"This is a case which is unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding," Ahmed told reporters in Khartoum after the decision was announced.
The case caused international outrage and strained relations between Britain and Sudan, whose government is under intensive international pressure over the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Government officials and many British Muslim leaders said they thought Sudan's prosecution of Gibbons was a reaction to that pressure, particularly the upcoming arrival of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Western governments accuse the Khartoum government of backing violent militias that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 2 million from their homes in one of the worst humanitarian crises in African history.
British Muslim groups spoke out strongly in favor of Gibbons, saying the Sudanese government's actions in the case had created greater misunderstandings about Islam. "This has certainly given ammunition to those who never miss an opportunity to portray Muslims as intolerant," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. He called Gibbons's release "wonderful news."
Gibbons had been jailed since she was arrested Nov. 25 on charges of inciting hatred and insulting Islam after her 7-year-old pupils named the bear after Islam's prophet as part of a school project. She was convicted last week and sentenced to 15 days in jail, avoiding a potentially longer sentence and as many as 40 lashes.
Although the conviction was greeted with outrage and disbelief in Britain, hundreds of protesters in Sudan complained that the sentence was too light and some called for Gibbons's execution. A leading group of Muslim clerics in Sudan said that Gibbons was part of a Western plot against Islam.
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