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Friday, November 30, 2007

Teddy bear update - thousands call for death of teacher

From BBC:
Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after children in her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.

She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.

The Foreign Office was in contact with Sudan's government overnight and is due to repeat demands for her release.

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".
Sharia law - the model of tolerance.

(For those wondering, the word under "Mohammed" on the bear is Mohammed in Arabic.)